Nigeria, Turkey sign agreements on energy, hydrocarbons, others

By Bisola Adeyemo

President Muhammadu Buhari and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have signed eight bilateral agreements on areas as energy, defense industry, mining and hydrocarbons in Abuja.

Buhari disclosed this to newsmen during a joint press conference with the Turkish president in Abuja on Wednesday, Guardian news reports.

President Buhari said “useful discussions on a number of bilateral issues, aimed at strengthening this cordial relationship between Nigeria and Turkey.

“The key issues we touched on included a Series of Bilateral Agreements and Memoranda of Understanding that had been finalized.

“As a positive outcome, eight major agreements/MoUs on a number of the key sectors including energy, defence, industry, mining and hydrocarbons among others were signed today. We have agreed that implementation is to commence immediately.

“In the course of our discussions, we also reviewed the travel ban list based on the revised COVID-19 protocols and removed Turkey from Nigeria’s Travel Ban List.

“Turkey has indeed achieved remarkable success in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In his remarks, Erdogan stressed that Turkey was determined to improve relations with Nigeria to “higher levels on all fields”.

“However, we still believe that this level of trade we have achieved is far from being adequate. We hope and pray that we will be expanding our trade volume up to 5 billion dollars immediately.

“We hope that the relations between the two nations will be further developed on the basis of a win-win scenario and mutual respect,” the president, who spoke through an interpreter said.

“We are ready to share our ever-expanding capabilities with Nigeria especially in the field of defence industry and security, which has been praised by the entire globe.

“This sensitivity that we have showcased in fighting terrorism, I hope will be reciprocated by our Nigerian brothers, sisters and counterparts,” he said.