Turkey, Serbia back each other's EU aspirations

The Turkish and Serbian presidents on Monday praised relations between the two countries, which they said have grown to the strategic level, and announced backing for each other's stalled European Union membership efforts. "The fact that our relations have turned into strategic relations is a development with historic significance," President Abdullah Gul said at a joint press conference with his Serbian counterpart, Boris Tadic, during his two-day official visit to Serbia which ended yesterday. During Gul's visit, the first presidential visit from Turkey to Serbia since 1986, the two countries signed cooperation deals in the areas of the economy, finance and transportation. The two presidents also called on Turkish businessmen to invest in Serbia. "Turkish investors aren't sufficiently active in Serbia. Perhaps this is due to some historical misunderstandings, but now's the time to turn a new page in relations," Tadic told a Serbian-Turkish business forum. Gul and Tadic also discussed the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina and their aspirations to join the EU. Tadic said Serbia and Turkey support each other's membership bids, calling them "the biggest peace project in history." Gul and Tadic later visited a Serbian town where the Ottoman Empire signed the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz with a coalition of European countries, a move seen as marking the beginning of the empire's decline. "There is no peace anywhere in the world without peace with Turkey," Tadic said. Gul also attended a dinner hosted by Tadic in his honor in Belgrade, and also had talks with Serbian Prime Minister Mikro Cyetkovi and Parliament Speaker Slavica Dukic-Dejanovic. Gul also attended a luncheon hosted by Bojan Pajtic, the president of Serbia's Vojvodina Autonomous Region.