LATVIA PREPARES FOR THE EU TERM PRESIDENCY

Minister for EU Affairs and the Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis met with Latvian Deputy Premier and Defense Minister Artis Pabriks in Istanbul on Wednesday and Bagis thanked Latvia for its support to Turkey's EU bid.

In the meeting held at the Ortakoy Office of the Secretariat General for EU Affairs, reminding his visit to Latvia in 2010, Bagis said that he was surprised to witness the interest the Latvians showed in Turkey and he added "Our bilateral relations are constantly growing."

Implying that he was responsible for preparing Latvia for EU term presidency and this would be Latvia's first term presidency in the EU, Pabriks noted that for this reason they were very much occupied with the EU issues and took the candidate countries and Turkey very seriously.

Pabriks said "We want to hold consultations with Turkey on the way to the EU term presidency. We have good bilateral relations with Turkey. We want Turkey's relations with the EU to get stronger and we support Turkey's participation in the European Defense Agency (EDA)"

Source: AA