Turkish-German Dialogue Mechanism to support Turkey's EU membership

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle signed Turkish-German Strategic Dialogue Mechanism agreement in Berlin on Monday. Concerning both the support to Turkey's membership to European Union (EU) and the cooperation for improvement of the bilateral relations, two countries signed the agreement to found the Strategic Dialogue Mechanism. The agreement emphasized, busy economic relations between the two countries, which have been important business partners for many years, strengthened with remarkable and mutual investments. Sides promoted the cooperation between the governments of the two countries and the areas of education and culture in local level. Besides, they highlighted civil societies' close cooperation in the agreement, which stated, "Two sides point to the strong relations between the two countries, especially to the 3 million Turkish people who live in Germany and provide a basis for matching of many twin towns and communities. They enrich the relations and form the humanitarian ties. It also remarks the tourists about 5 million, who visit Turkey each year." Moreover, Turkey's membership to EU was among the dealt subjects in the agreement, which noted the importance of the cooperation against terrorism, radicalism, including violence and the struggle against organized crimes, stating that Strategic Dialogue Mechanism was established to support the membership process in this way. "Hereby, each side announces the purposes on founding the Strategic Dialogue Mechanism, which is to develop the cooperation on important subjects where both countries have mutual interests, including the support to Turkey's EU membership. Within the scope of the Strategic Dialogue of Foreign Ministry, a range of experts' working team will come together and for each group, a Turkish and a German senior official will preside. Working teams will be founded with consensus. Besides national and international issues, they will pay attention to EU and other subjects of many-sided forums. First five working teams will be about bilateral relations, security policy, counter terrorism and partnership to the EU, apart from regional and international subjects. Expert working teams will designate their own agenda and gather independently if needed."  Turkish-German Strategic Dialogue Mechanism will convene once a year at least under the Turkish and German foreign ministers' co-chairmanship and will take place in Turkey and Germany in rotation. Added to the annual meetings of the foreign ministers, annual consultations will be made in the level of undersecretaries of the foreign ministries or state secretaries, by which the Strategic Dialogue Mechanism will be prepared and followed.