The Turkish prime minister received on Tuesday members of the Dialogue Eurasia Platform Kazakhstan delegation.

Turkey's Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a meeting with the delegation at the Turkish parliament in Ankara.

"Our friendship, coming from history and based on strong grounds have turned into a strong partnership with rapid developments made in political, military, economic, commercial and cultural relations," Erdogan said during the meeting.

Erdogan said the Eurasia Platform was assuming significant roles in helping nations know better about each other, and defined Kazakhstan as an important partner of Turkey in the region and in international arena.

Prime Minister Erdogan referred to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev's visit to Turkey in October 2009 and a strategic partnership document signed during that visit, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's recent visit to the Kazakh capital of Astana.

"Also, a historic step was taken during the Nakhichevan summit in October 2009, and cooperation among Turkic speaking countries has become institutionalized with an agreement signed during the summit," he said.

Erdogan said Kazakhstan had great contributions to that process, and a Turkish Academy, to be established in Kazakhstan under Nazarbayev's proposal, would take scientific, cultural and educational heritage of the Turkish world under register.

"We also consider Kazakhstan's undertaking the rotating presidency of OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) in 2010 as a reflection of this country in our region and the world," Erdogan said.

Erdogan defined Kazakhstan as the biggest economic and commercial partner of Turkey in Central Asia, and said this partnership was strengthened by energy and transportation projects.

The Turkish prime minister said Turkish-Kazakh trade volume was over 1.7 billion USD in 2009, and Turkish companies had undertaken projects over 8 billion USD in Kazakhstan.


AA