Erdogan arrives in Astana for 2-day visit

By Enes Kaplan and Aliia Raimbekova

ASTANA, Kazakhstan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that he would discuss joint projects and regional issues with his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Erdogan arrived Saturday morning in the Kazakh capital Astana for a two-day visit.

“It is an occasion of bliss to be in Astana on the 25th anniversary of our bilateral relations,” Erdogan said during his meeting with Nazarbayev, part of which was open to the media.

“Here is a second home to us, we feel at home. We are making an effort to improve our political, military, commercial, cultural, and economic relations each passing day,” he added.

Erdogan also mentioned the Sept. 14 Astana summit, saying it was crucial to the Geneva peace talks process.

The Geneva talks on Syria are expected to take place after those in Astana, but there is no scheduled date.

Several rounds of subsequent peace talks -- in both Geneva and Kazakh capital Astana -- have so far failed to end the Syrian conflict, in which hundreds of thousands of civilians are believed to have been killed to date.

During May talks in Kazakh capital Astana, Turkey (which supports the Syrian opposition) agreed with Russia and Iran (which support the Assad regime) on a plan to establish a network of “de-escalation zones” in different regions of war-torn Syria.

Erdogan also said the trade volume between the two countries was almost $2 billion, and the goal was to reach $5 billion.

Nazarbayev said he would attend the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit with Erdogan on Sunday. About 70 committee members of 57 countries are expected to attend the summit.