PERES IN ANKARA, MEETS GUL TODAY
The New Anatolian, Turkey
Nov 12 2007
Israeli President Shimon Peres arrived in Turkey on Sunday.
Peres visited Ataturk’s Mausoleum (Anitkabir) and then gave a
conference at Bilkent University which decorated him with honorary
doctorate.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul will welcome Peres with a formal
ceremony at Cankaya Presidential Palace today.
The visiting president will hold meet with Turkish Parliament Speaker
Koksal Toptan, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister
Ali Babacan, and also attend a dinner which will be hosted by President
Gul in his honor today.
Peres will address Turkish Parliament on Tuesday. He will proceed
to Istanbul the same day, and meet Jewish community there, and then
depart from Turkey.
Turkish officials said that talks with Peres would focus on the
possibility of renewing Israeli negotiations with Syria, the Iranian
threat as well as the growing rift between Turkey and the US over an
initiative in the Congress to formally recognize the Armenian genocide
of 1915.
"Turkey can play a first-tier role in the peace process," Peres said
last week, adding that the country’s moderate and democratic nature
served as a counterweight to the extremist Islam embodied by Iran.
"If the Turkish way will win, all of us will win, Muslims and Jews,
Arabs and Israelis."
Peres, together with Turkish President Gul and Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas, will attend Ankara Forum.
The 7th Ankara Forum –which was initiated by Turkey in April 2005–
will be held at Cankaya Presidential Palace on Tuesday.
Framework agreement –which will start organized industrial projects
at West Bank– will be signed within the scope of Ankara Forum.
The Ankara Forum, is comprised of industrialists and leading
businessmen in Turkey, Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The
forum had sought to set up an industrial zone at the Erez Crossing
with the Gaza Strip, but the project was diverted to the West Bank
following the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June.