New Delhi, April 8 (IANS) India and Turkey held the 12th round of Foreign Office Consultations in New Delhi on Wednesday, reviewing bilateral ties with a focus on diverse sectors such as trade and investment, tourism, technology and innovation, energy, cooperation in educational and cultural fields, people to people ties and fight against cross border terrorism.
Secretary (West) at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Sibi George and Turkey’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Berris Ekinci co-chaired the meeting. The two sides also discussed regional and global issues of mutual interest.
“The 12th round of India-Turkey Foreign Office Consultations were held in New Delhi on 8 April 2026, co-chaired by Secretary (West) Sibi George and and Ms. Berris Ekinci, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey. Both sides reviewed the full spectrum of bilateral relations with focus on trade and investment, tourism, technology and innovation, energy, cooperation in educational and cultural fields, people to people ties and fight against cross border terrorism. They also exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual interest,” read a statement issued by the MEA after the meeting.
The last round of India-Turkey Foreign Office Consultations was held in Ankara in 2022.
On Wednesday, both sides agreed to hold the next round of consultations in Turkey on mutually convenient dates.
External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar had held a bilateral meeting with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan on the sidelines of ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting in Vientiane in 2024.
In September 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of COP28 in Dubai. The two leaders had also met during Erdogan’s visit to India to attend the G20 Summit in New Delhi in September 2023.
India had launched a massive humanitarian assistance initiative named ‘Operation Dost’ in the wake of the 2023 earthquakes in southern Turkey which not only involved sending relief material but also search and rescue teams from India’s National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) along with a mobile field hospital set up by the Indian Army.
–IANS
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