Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said his country endorsed the idea of delivering more grain and fertilizer to developing and underdeveloped countries on the African continent, during a visit to South Africa on Tuesday.
Çavuşoğlu, who started a five-nation tour of Africa earlier this week, held a joint press conference with South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor in Pretoria after the opening of a new challenge of the Turkish consulate in Cape Town on Monday.
He said they held comprehensive talks with Pandor on bilateral relations and international issues and expressed hope to have the fourth meeting of an economic committee of two countries in Türkiye, noting that bilateral trade volume exceeded $3 billion in 2022, increasing by 50%. He said they also discussed the possibility of organizing another Türkiye-South Africa Business Forum and opportunities for cooperation on infrastructure and energy projects. He noted that the two countries also signed a memorandum of understanding for scientific and technological cooperation.
The minister stated that increasing Turkish Airlines (THY) flights to and from Johannesburg and Cape Town would improve commerce and tourism. “In our talks today, we agreed upon the need to bring back the rate of flights between our countries to pre-pandemic levels,” he said.
He noted that Türkiye’s approach to Africa was based on equal partnership, mutual respect, and a win-win strategy. They would continue working with South Africa for their Africa Partnership Policy.
The two ministers also discussed developments in Ukraine, Ethiopia and Africa, and Çavuşoğlu said they appreciated South Africa’s role in the deal between the Ethiopian government and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). He said Türkiye and South Africa were doing their best for the smooth implementation of the United Nations Istanbul grain deal.
