Gul receives Serbian counterpart

President Abdullah Gul yesterday received his Serbian counterpart Tomislav Nikolic in an official ceremony at the Cankaya Presidential Palace in Ankara, where the two leaders had a tete-a-tete and then chaired the delegational talks. Gul and Nikolic also responded the questions from the press in a joint press conference. In responding to a question about the attack on the US Embassy in Ankara which occurred last week, Gul once again shared his sadness about the incident in which a Turkish security officer was killed and wished a quick recovery for the Turkish journalist who was wounded. "Our security and intelligence services were on alert about any attack of terrorist organization and were warning everybody. Unfortunately, the attack occurred," Gul said. Upon another question which asked, "Alternative of Shanghai Five is on the agenda. About the membership process, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said, they may meet with EU countries again. How do you assess the latest situation?" Gul said, "We are engaged in negotiations for full membership in the EU. Unfortunately, the negotiations are not at a desired level due to some prejudice of EU member countries toward Turkey. The prime minister expressed his resentment mainly due to this issue. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is not an alternative to the EU. They are different organizations. Turkey aims to conclude the process of negotiations with the EU successfully. At the moment Turkey is a country that works to implement more EU criteria. We've had some deficiencies and we are trying to fix them with new legislations."  For his part, Nikolic expressed his gladness to be in Turkey for the second time in a short period of time. "We commonly wish to join the EU. We probably have common problems on our path to EU membership, along with our common wishes," Nikolic said. Furthermore, Gul hosted a dinner in the honor of Nikolic at the Cankaya Presidential Palace.