ANKARA
Turkey is committed to fostering good relations with Caribbean countries, Turkey's Development Minister Cevdet Yilmaz on Friday told the ministerial council of the Association of Caribbean States in Trinidad and Tobago.
Yilmaz said Turkey’s interest in the region has a more than decade-long history.
"Turkey’s commitment to your region is strong, multifaceted and longstanding," he told the council, adding that the country's trade volume with the region has increased nine-fold in ten years, to reach $8 billion.
"We believe that Turkey can provide significant added value to global peace and security in an era of critical and rapid change in regional and international affairs."
Yilmaz said Turkey's role in this regard would become more pronounced during its G20 presidency in 2015 and when it hosts the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit in 2016.
Turkey spent more than a billion US dollars in humanitarian aid in 2013, according to a report on global humanitarian assistance by anti-poverty group Development Initiatives. It allocated the largest portion of this sum to its response to the Syria refugee crisis. Close to 600,000 Syrians are registered as refugees in Turkey, according to the UN’s Refugee Agency.
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