VALLETTA
urkey's Agriculture, Food, & Animal Breeding Minister Mehdi Eker visited Turkish martyrs' cemetery in Malta on Thursday.
Eker is currently in Malta to attend a meeting of International Center for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM).
Eker visited the cemetery of Turkish soldiers who had been martyred in Malta during World War I as well as during Ottoman Empire's siege of Malta. He laid a wreath on the cemetery.
Later, Eker visited Turkish Embassy in Valletta which was opened in 2009.
Meanwhile, Malta's Minister of Resources & Rural Affairs George Pullicino said that it was CIHEAM's first meeting after Arab Spring, and wished north and south of the Mediterranean would make new cooperations in the meeting.
Discussions within the scope of the meeting will focus on "Food Security and Pricing in the Mediterranean Countries".
CIHEAM was founded at the joint initiative of the OECD and the Council of Europe on May 21, 1962 under an agreement signed by the governments of seven southern European countries: France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and Yugoslavia.
The first CIHEAM meeting was held in Rome in 1999. Since then, successive meetings have been held in Rabat (2000), Athens (2001), Beirut (2002), Paris (2004), Cairo (2006), Zaragoza (2008) and Istanbul (2010).
CIHEAM's mission is "providing supplementary education (economic as well as technical) and developing a spirit of international cooperation among agricultural personnel in Mediterranean countries".
No serious crisis in world food prices
Minister Mehdi Eker has said that there was not a serious crisis in world food prices.
However, I think price increase in some products like soy bean is speculative, added Eker who attended a ministerial meeting of International Center for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM) in Malta on Thursday.
Although there is a price increase in food in recent months, the prices are still lower than they were in 2011, said Eker.
