ANKARA

Malaysia and Pakistan are "key partners" for Turkey, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday.

He made the remarks after meeting his Pakistani and Malaysian counterparts, Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Dato Saifuddin bin Abdullah, in Jeddah.

“Malaysia and Pakistan are key partners for Turkey,” Cavusoglu tweeted. “As major democracies and economies of the Islamic World, will further our cooperation & make better use of our combined potential.”

He added that preparations were now underway “for the next High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council meeting with Pakistan”, going on to extol Islamabad’s “important” contribution to the Afghan peace process.

On Wednesday, Cavusoglu arrived in Saudi Arabia to officially hand the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)’s rotating presidency over to Riyadh.

In 2016, Egypt handed the OIC presidency over to Turkey for a three-year term.

Established in 1969, the Jeddah-based OIC currently has 57 member-states.