Third meeting of Trilateral Balkans Summit begins in Ankara

Turkish President Abdullah Gul stated that the Trilateral Balkans Summit restored trust and political will to deepen the cooperation among the parties.   The Trilateral Balkans Summit at the Cankaya Palace in Turkish capital Ankara ended with the presentation of summit conclusions at the joint press conference. Speaking at the press conference, Gul thanked Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic, Bosnia and Herzegovina's presidency members Bakir Izetbegovic (Bosniak), Nebojsa Radmanovic (Serbian) and Zeljko Komsic (Croatian) for their participation in the summit titled "Building future together". Emphasizing that the parties shared their opinion sincerely and openly during the two-hour meeting, Gul said, "I want to remind that the previous developments have contributed in the succees of this meeting." Gul said that the decisions made in the first summit in 2010 had been applied step by step, adding that the ambassador exchange between Belgrade and Sarajevo, Radmanovic's historic Belgrade visit, Nikolic's constructive and brave statements, and Serbia's first step towards European Union membership consolidated the positive atmosphere. Economy was high on the agenda Gul stressed that economic cooperation was the top agenda item of the meeting. "We all agree that Balkan countries' coming together under NATO and EU umbrella would guarantee stability and security to a great extent, as well as easing the solution of existing problems," said Gul. Underlining that the parties discussed the necessary steps to be taken among each other, Gul said, "as we have seen here, the atmosphere has been changing. We all expect that everything would progress positively in the future because the historic steps are taken. Within a small period of time, first visits of considerable significance, Belgrade and Sarajevo have met. All these were the issues that we discussed and decided in the previous meetings. We believe that the points that we discussed today will be implemented soon." Gul stated that investors could invest much more confidently in Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Balkan region, and added, "all the parties comprehended the importance of political stability, security and necessary reforms to be made in the region. I am sure that this should be the biggest signal to the investors and business world." Mutual trust restored Stressing that the meeting has succeeded, Gul reiterated the parties' decisiveness for organizing the next meeting. In response to a question, Gul said, "building mutual trust was the most important thing we had achieved so far." Gul explained, "we achieved results gradually, patiently and slowly. Had it been so easy to solve the problems in one night, those troubles would have never been occurred. What matters is to proceed. We restored trust and political will to deepen the cooperation among the parties. We still may have dissimilarities however we now have the courage to discuss these ripely. The process is getting institutionalized. Particularly important steps to be taken in economy...So far we all put effort for having serious, concrete development on economy, however in the absence of political trust, we could not have enough achievement on economy. Hereupon, I believe that several steps would be taken until the next meeting, which will fasten the political process and have positive effects on each other." "A new Balkan mindset" During his speech delivered at the opening session of the third meeting of the Trilateral Balkans Summit earlier on Wednesday, Gul stated that the vision adopted by leaders of Balkan countries was to allow a new mindset towards the future, not the past. The first two meetings of the summit were held in April 2010 in Istanbul, and July 2011 in Belgrade. Bosnia and Serbia willing to improve economic relations with Turkey Bosnia and Herzegovina's Serbian presidency member Nebojsa Radmanovic and Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic said that their political relations with Turkey were very good and they were willing to improve the economic relations as well. Radmanovic and Nikolic spoke at the joint press conference which was held after the third meeting of the Trilateral Balkans Summit at the Cankaya Palace in Turkish capital Ankara on Wednesday. Radmanovic called on Turkish companies to invest in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Radmanovic, who appeared at the press conference together with Zeljko Komsic and Bakir Izetbegovic --Croatian and Bosniak members of Presidency--, said that the summit was very fruitful, and added that they held meetings very frequently which became helpful to improve the relations significantly. Nikolic, in his part, noted that they considered Turkey as an important economic partner. He said that political cooperation with Turkey was on a good level, but economic relations were not on the desired level.