Bakiev today had separate talks with his Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, and parliament speaker Bulent Arinc.
He was scheduled to meet later with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and former President Suleyman Demirel, Turkey's president between 1993 and 2000. He was also due to attend a business forum organized by the Turkish Union of Chambers of Commerce and Commodity Exchanges.
Kyrgyzstan's Kabar national news agency reports Kyrgyz and Turkish officials today signed several documents, including one on the cooperation against human trafficking and illegal migration flows.
Also today, Turkey's Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) obtained Kyrgyzstan's consent for opening an office in Bishkek.
Back in the early 1990s, Demirel and other Turkish leading politicians saw in the demise of the Soviet Union a unique opportunity to make inroads into Central Asia. Yet ties between Ankara and the Turkic states of the formet Soviet Union have remained well below Demirel's expectations.
Today in Ankara, Bakiev said he hoped his visit would bring cooperation between Turkey and his country to a "new level," according to his official website.
(Anadolu, Kabar)
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