Ankara – The Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) Secretary General, Goran Svilanovic, was in a visit to Ankara for consultations.

The visit to Turkey comes within his regular dialogue with the RCC Board Participants. The Secretary General met the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmet Yildiz and high officials from Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He also had talks with representatives of Turkish ministries engaged in regional cooperation in SEE.

The topics discussed included: exchange of views on the current situation in South East Europe and on RCC’s priorities and actions in the next three years, with special focus on strengthening regional economic cooperation; the activities of the Regional Cooperation Council wrapped around its work under the South-East Europe Cooperation Process (SEECP) and the implementation of the South East Europe 2020 Strategy, as the core of the organisation’s Strategy and Work programme 2017-2019. Further engagement of Turkey in RCC’s activities was explored, in particular in the area of: education, science, countering radicalization and violent extremism and security cooperation, Roma integration 2020 programme, etc.

Moreover, the SG informed on the ongoing preparation of the RCC Annual Meeting to be held on 29 June, back-to-back with the SEECP high-level events.