BAGIS PAID 34 VISITS TO 17 COUNTRIES DURING 2009

Minister for EU Affairs and the Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis, who has been contributing to the diplomacy traffic between Turkey and EU since he has been appointed as the chief negotiator in 2009, paid particular attention to the countries that bear priority in terms of Turkey's EU process.

Within this framework, Bagis paid a visit to Belgium eight times; four times to France; three times to Sweden and Czech Republic; two times to TRNC and Germany; once to Switzerland, Italy, Finland, Greece, Croatia, Austria, Spain, Moldova and the United Kingdom. Apart from foreign contacts regarding the EU process, Bagis visited 22 provinces in Turkey to give information about EU. Furthermore Minister Bagis paid two visits to the USA and one visit to Mexico last year.

Bagis will continue his contacts regarding the EU process in 2010 as well. Within this framework, a visit to Spain, which assumed the EU Presidency, is being planned for the next week.

The Spanish Foreign Minister, Miguel Moratinos, declared in his speech, in Madrid, that they were considering speeding up Turkey's EU accession negotiations. Moratinos stated that they were planning to open new negotiation chapters. He said: "There are four chapters that we are considering to open."

Source: AA