Japan-Türkiye Relations

1. At the beginning, Prime Minister Abe welcomed President Erdoğan’s visit to Japan. Prime Minister Abe stated that, under the leadership of the two leaders, Japan and Turkey have seen their relationship evolve from historically friendly nations to strategic partners over the past six years, that while the two countries have steadily cooperated in a range of areas such as politics, economy, and culture, Japan’s cooperation with Turkey, a regional power, still has far greater potential, and that Japan attaches importance to cooperation in other wide-ranging areas as well, including education, disaster risk reduction, and energy. In response, President Erdoğan said he was pleased to be able to visit Japan, a friend of Turkey, and congratulated Prime Minister Abe for his successful presidency of the G20 Osaka Summit.

2. The two leaders confirmed that they would further accelerate negotiations with a view to reaching an early agreement on the Japan-Turkey Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), that they would further cooperate on realizing the Turkish-Japanese Science and Technology University, a symbolic cooperation project between the two countries, that they expect an early conclusion of a technology cooperation agreement for implementing concrete cooperation for this university and other projects, and that they would further deepen Japan-Turkey relations in a wide range of areas including the economy.

3. The two leaders exchanged views regarding the situation in the Middle East, including the situation in Syria, as well as Asian affairs, and shared the view that they would continue to work closely on international affairs.