ANKARA
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe touched on Japan's cooperation works with Turkey in the field of nuclear energy and has said on Friday, "We believe, it is Japan's responsibility to share our experience and lessons learnt from the severe accidents by contribute enhancing nuclear safety."
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who is currently visiting Turkey to hold formal talks held a press meeting at the Hilton Hotel in Turkish capital Ankara and assessed his Middle East trip.
Abe reminded that his visit to the region was planned to hold talks in Russia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Turkey.
He said, the purpose of this trip to the Middle East was to step beyond conditional resources of energy centric relations, such as crude oil transactions and broad range of economic cooperation as well as political security and cultural ties.
Abe added, "In this framework, I stated while visiting Saudi Arabia that I intend to strengthen Japan's relationship with Middle East in a major way to as comprehensive partnership for stability and prosperity. The greatest feature of my visit is that I have the company by the biggest and strongest delegation of more than hundred leaders representing Japanese business including, agriculture and medicine. These businesspeople have successfully marketed the compelling strength of Japan's business and economy indeed it marks the start of full scale economic diplomacy."
Moreover, Abe assessed Japan's multifaceted relations focused on the region and said, "There are three key words to the comprehensive partnership. Firstly, it is collaboration, secondly, its co-existence and co-prosperity and lastly, harmony and tolerance."
"The first is collaboration that is to say cooperation into domains of politics and security. What I mean with is that especially, Japan supporting peace in Middle East, public security, regional stability, counter terrorism and democratization and I think that Japan can play such an important role in these topics of the region. In this framework, my government decided to transfer a 2.2 billion USD assistance to the Middle East and North Africa. Meanwhile, within the scope of this visit, we held talks to cooperate with Saudi Arabia and UAE in the topics of security", stated Japanese prime minister.
Abe said, the second key word for a comprehensive partnership was co-existence and co-prosperity.
Shinzo Abe underlined, "Co-existence and co-prosperity refer to the expansion of deepening of economic relations. The Middle East's high economic potential is directly linked to Japan's growth. Japan wishes to establish relationship that goes beyond the framework of energy centered cooperation. In particular, I feel there was strong interest on the part of my counterparts in Japan's good tasting and healthy agricultural products, and more, Japan's state of medical devices and technology. These products contribute to enhancing the quality of life of the people and such cooperation will be mutually beneficial. Throughout my visit, the large number of cooperation documents among companies were produced. We have signed many cooperation agreements and many firms have set up cooperation links. These links are taken as such major achievement for us."
Abe touched on the nuclear energy topic and said, "In the field of nuclear energy, again, strong interest were shown towards Japan's top class technology. Three nuclear power agreements were signed. Here in Turkey, in particular, regarding the Sinop nuclear power station project, we believe it is Japan's responsibility to share our experience and lessons learnt from the severe accidents by contribute enhancing nuclear safety."
Japanese prime minister said, the third key points were harmony and tolerance, as referring to strengthening of cultural and people to people exchange. "By understanding and respecting each others history and culture, we should promote cooperation in human development and education. To be specific, in the next five years of time, Japan will conduct training for approximately 20,000 people from the Middle East as well as increasing the number of students we receive from Middle East in Japan."
Upon a question, Abe touched on Turkey's solution process in Kurdish issue and said, "It will strengthen Turkey's stability more and it will increase the number of cooperation opportunities between Turkish and Japanese companies."
Lastly, Abe replied a question over Japan's role in finding solutions to international problems and said, "At the moment, the Middle East goes through a historical transformation. In this point, Japan is ready to cooperate with the international community to bring prosperity and stability to the region. Two days ago, we have made public the 2.2 billion USD aid. This is for increasing the stability in the region."
