Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in his office in the Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, reports Anadolu Agency, quoted by BTA.
At the meeting, which took place yesterday behind closed doors, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was also present.
Fidan and his Saudi counterpart also held bilateral talks, after which they gave a joint press conference.
At the briefing, Fidan emphasized that close cooperation between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which are two important figures in the region and the Islamic world, is of great importance.
In this context, we are pleased that our relations with Saudi Arabia have gained significant momentum over the past few years. During today's talks, we assessed the current state of our bilateral relations and discussed opportunities to improve our cooperation in all areas, Fidan pointed out.
We would also like to restore the Turkish-Saudi Coordination Council, which we established in 2016 and whose first meeting was held in Ankara in 2017. We have just signed the protocol governing the functioning of this mechanism, the Turkish foreign minister said.
We also agreed to hold the second meeting of the Council in Riyadh this year. Our coordinating board consists of five subcommittees that will collaborate in many different areas – diplomacy, culture, trade, healthcare, military affairs, energy, specified Fidan.
In the past two years, relations between Ankara and Riyadh have improved significantly since the dispute with Saudi Arabia that arose after the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. The crisis in relations triggered an unofficial Saudi boycott of Turkish goods, which had led to a contraction of trade by 98 percent.