By Vestnik Kavkaza
The Turkish authorities do not intend to impose sanctions on Russia if asked to do so by the US or the EU, and Russian-Turkish relations are not influenced by external forces, Turkish Ambassador to Moscow Umit Yardym said on the eve of the 91st anniversary of the republic's independence. "While I was working in Iran I realized that sanctions are not the method to achieve one's political goals. Turkey's position is to follow the decisions made by the United Nations. This is true not only for Turkey, but for all UN member states," he said. "I do not see Russian-Turkish relations in the context of these sanctions," the ambassador said.
"Trade with our close friend and neighbour Russia in 2002 amounted to only 5 billion dollars. Since then, the figure managed to reach 32 billion dollars. Russia is the second-largest trading partner of Turkey. Turkey is Russia's trading partner number eight. The area in which the greatest progress has been achieved is the sphere of tourism. If previously Turkey was visited only by 100 thousand foreign tourists, today the figure is 35 million. Turkey is the 6th most popular country among international tourists. Our goal is to bring Turkey into the top-five most visited places in the world," Umit Yardym said.
According to him, "in 1920, Turkey was an agricultural, undeveloped country, but relying solely on its own strength, it began to provide five percent annual growth. Today the Turkish economy is ranked 17th in the world and 6th in Europe, ahead of many EU member states. Our goal is to bring the Turkish economy into the 10 largest economies of the world."
"We export mostly industrial products. Over the last twenty years we have managed to increase the gross national income per capita from 2 thousand dollars to 12 thousand. The goal is to bring this figure up to 25 thousand dollars by 2023, Umit Yardym said. Over the past 10 years we have increased exports to 152 billion. Construction is an important part of the Turkish economy. Today the construction investments of Turkish companies abroad amount to about 300 billion. Turkey ranks second in the world in this sphere."
