Xi, Turkish president hold talks, agreeing to deepen strategic cooperation

BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Great Hall of the People on Tuesday, pledging more efforts to promote strategic cooperation between the two sides and work for sound bilateral ties.

Noting China and Turkey are both major emerging markets and developing countries, Xi said enhancing strategic cooperation is of great significance.

He called on the two sides to deepen political mutual trust, beef up strategic communication, respect each other's core interests and major concerns on issues pertaining to national sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, and consolidate the political foundation underlying the development of China-Turkey strategic cooperative relationship to keep bilateral ties on a healthy and stable track.

On anti-terrorism security cooperation, Xi said China appreciates Erdogan's reiteration on many occasions about not allowing anti-China separatist activities instigated by any force in Turkey, and highly values the repeated emphasis by the Turkish side on supporting China's anti-terrorism efforts, noting that China is ready to strengthen cooperation with Turkey in the field of international anti-terrorism.

Speaking of synergizing development strategies and expanding pragmatic cooperation, Xi called Turkey an important partner in jointly building the Belt and Road.

"China is willing to move faster in dovetailing the Belt and Road Initiative with the Middle Corridor project, steadily promote cooperation on trade, investment, science and technology, energy, infrastructure and major projects and actively seek cooperation in small and medium-sized programs and those that benefit the people, to deliver concrete benefits to more enterprises and the people," the Chinese president said.

Xi also called for expanding people-to-people exchanges and tourism cooperation for better mutual understanding between the two peoples, to solidify the popular support for China-Turkey friendship.

In the face of major shifts in the international situation, China and Turkey should firmly uphold the international system with the United Nations at the core and the international law as the basis, safeguard multilateralism and international fairness and justice, as well as the multilateral trading regime with World Trade Organization at the core, Xi said.

He urged the two sides to deepen the strategic cooperative relationship, guard the common interests of China and Turkey as well as developing countries at large and jointly forge a new type of international relations featuring mutual respect, fairness and justice, and win-win cooperation.

"We should keep in contact and coordination in regional affairs and jointly advance political settlements for hotspot issues, to contribute to regional peace, stability and development," Xi said.

Noting that the time-honored Turkey-China friendship which can be traced back to the time of ancient Silk Road is consolidated today, Erdogan said the close bilateral ties are significant for regional peace and prosperity.

Turkey stays committed to the one-China policy, Erdogan said, stressing that residents of various ethnicities living happily in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region thanks to China's prosperity is a hard fact, and Turkey will not allow anyone to drive a wedge in its relations with China. He also expressed the readiness to deepen political mutual trust and strengthen security cooperation with China in opposing extremism.

Voicing firm support for the Belt and Road Initiative, the Turkish president said he hopes the two sides can step up cooperation in areas such as trade, investment and 5G networks as well as exchanges in educational, cultural and scientific research sectors.

Prior to the talks, Xi held a welcoming ceremony for Erdogan.