Gul addresses businesspeople at Turkey-Lithunia Business Forum

President Abdullah Gul attended the opening ceremony of the Turkish-Lithuanian Business Forum in Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, where he had been visiting for formal talks. In a speech he made there, Gul yesterday criticized the EU over its slow visa procedures. "We expect my counterparts in the EU including Your Excellency to bring up this issue at the EU meetings which we do not attend, especially during the Lithuanian term presidency. It is not fair at all that even when the EU signed the agreements on lifting visa requirements with even the countries which have not started the negotiation process, it has not signed such an agreement with Turkey, yet," Gul said. Stating that the Viking Train Project will be signed to connect the Baltic region to Turkey via the Black Sea and to the Middle East and other regions, Gul said that the Turkish Airlines (THY) will also launch direct flights to Vilnius in June. Gul also urged Lithuanian businesspeople to go into partnership with their Turkish colleagues in our region.