Slovenia seeking new cooperation with Turkey

Slovenian President Borut Pahor is due to visit Turkey on Wednesday for talks with his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Cicek. Accompanied by Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec, Pahor will discuss investment, trade and other bilateral topics during the visit, the Slovenian Press Agency reported on Tuesday. Slovenia, which declared independence from former Yugoslavia in 1991, is a member state of both the European Union (EU) and NATO. Turkey joined NATO in 1952, and has been striving for EU membership since 1987. With mutual trade standing at 400 million euros (520 million U.S. dollars) in 2012, Turkey is becoming an important trade partner with Slovenia. However, mutual investment has been modest, with the incoming foreign direct investment registering at 5.8 million euros, and Slovenia's investment in Turkey at 6.9 million euros by the end of 2012, according to data from the Slovenian central bank. (1 euro = 1.36 U.S. dollars)