Level Strategic Council

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar will pay separate visits to Iran in the coming days amid rising tension over the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) bid to hold an independence referendum on Sept. 25 and continued efforts to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria. 

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu will pay a visit to Ukraine on Feb. 9 and 10 on the occasion of the fifth meeting of the Joint Strategic Planning Group, a Foreign Ministry statement said on Feb. 8. 

Çavuşoğlu and his Ukrainian counterpart, Pavlo Klimkin, will review all dimensions of bilateral relations and discuss new cooperation opportunities, the statement said.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is to make an official visit to Turkey on March 9-10, the Ukrainian president's office said in a statement on March 7. 

Poroshenko will carry out talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an and Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu, according to the statement. 

Poroshenko will also meet with Turkish Parliament Speaker ?smail Kahraman.

Saudi Arabia opened its embassy in Baghdad after 25 years closed on Jan. 1. It had been closed ever since Iraq invaded Kuwait. 

The visit by Turkish Prime Minister Davutoğlu to Athens last weekend was very important in terms of number of ministers accompanying him, along with the number of members of Turkey’s business elite.  The delegation had gone there for “business,” as Davutoğlu stated in his speech at the end of the Turkish-Greek High Level Strategic Council.

Turkish PM Davutoğlu has called for a closer cooperation with Greece during his visit to Athens as part of the third High Level Strategic Council between both countries, while playing down differences, particularly on the Cyprus issue