Turkey's Capital Markets Board (SPK) and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) signed a cooperation agreement in Washington on Thursday.

SPK and SEC have been conducting joint studies to boost economic and commercial cooperation between Turkey and the United States and to foster cooperation on topics of "cooperation in capital markets" and "Istanbul Finance Center". SPK and SEC earlier decided to form a formal cooperation mechanism, called "regulative dialogue".

SPK President Vedat Akgiray and SEC President Mary Schapiro signed a "job definition document" at SEC headquarters in Washington with this objective.

Akgiray held a news conference at the Turkish Embassy in Washington to brief about the agreement and his talks.

Akgiray said deal with SEC included three areas, "the first one envisages a training that is given by SEC and SPK experts to capital markets experts in countries neighboring Turkey. A joint conference will be held in Istanbul in October in which SEC experts will also join."

"Secondly, following the global crisis, there have been discussions regarding inadequacy of financial regulation in the world. Structure of a new regulation is under discussion in all meeting for two years. However, there are many different voices in international organization. With this deal, Turkey and the United States decided to carry out closer works," he said.

Akgiray said, "thirdly, the deal aims at accelerating share of information and intelligence particularly on issues related to crimes."

Akgiray said SEC signed this agreement only with Turkey after China, India, Japan and Korea, "this is an indication of the importance given to Turkey.

AA