President Buhari Meets President Recep Tayyeb Erdogan In Turkey

President Recep Tayyeb Erdogan hosted Muhammadu Buhari, the President of Nigeria for a fairly long one-on-one meeting in Ankara, the Turkish capital on Thursday before the bilateral meeting that involved their ministers and members of their delegations.

This was President Buhari’s first visit to Turkey since his election in 2015, but the second meeting with President Erdogan who as Prime Minister visited Abuja in March, 2016.

Though the meeting of the group, Developing Eight, simply “D-8” in Istanbul was what President Buhari set out to attend, he spent an earlier 24 hours in the capital, Ankara to round off the technical meetings of delegates from both governments in what can be summed as a compressed State Visit.

President Buhari’s overarching objective during this visit for both occasions was to focus on issues of security and anti-terrorism; agricultural cooperation; trade cooperation; education and health; transport and connectivity; energy sector cooperation and increased private sector participation.

Expectations on major concrete deliverables out of the trip had been loudly suggested by our officials, even before the meetings began and from the early outcomes we got, there is every reason for that excitement. The visit has achieved quite a lot on the stated objectives.

NAN