Turkey and the U.K. cooperate in various corners of the world for peace and security and act in full cooperation with organizations they are members of, Turkey's newly appointed Ambassador to London Ümit Yalçın said on Tuesday.
Yalçın, who has commenced his new post on Oct. 1, expressed his pride and pleasure for taking the ambassadorial post in the U.K. Underlining that Turkey-U.K. relations have a history of 500 years, Yalçın also reminded that one of the earliest ambassadors of the Ottoman Empire was sent to London. Yalçın stressed that the two countries have been in strategic partnership since 2007 and bilateral relations have accelerated in this respect.
He noted the bilateral trade volume between Turkey and the U.K. has reached $16.2 billion and that the U.K. has become the second largest export market for Turkey. Yalçın mentioned that British companies hold fourth place in investments in Turkey with investments around more than $10 billion. He further said that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's official visit to the U.K. this year and the Turkish and British premiers' bilateral visits were the proof of high-level relations between the two countries.
Yalçın was appointed as the new Turkish ambassador to the U.K. in September, succeeding Abdurrahman Bilgiç.