{"id":15610,"date":"2026-05-14T07:04:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T07:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/15610\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T07:04:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T07:04:21","slug":"turkiye-belgium-highlight-stronger-cooperation-in-defense-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/15610\/","title":{"rendered":"T\u00fcrkiye, Belgium highlight stronger cooperation in defense, trade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            ANKARA<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6a046f7ee06136f4de4d0d9a.jpg\" alt=\"T\u00fcrkiye, Belgium highlight stronger cooperation in defense, trade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Ankara and Brussels described the Belgian Economic Mission\u2019s visit to <a title=\"T\u00fcrkiye\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hurriyetdailynews.com\/index\/turkiye\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">T\u00fcrkiye<\/a> as an important step toward strengthening economic <a title=\"cooperation \" href=\"https:\/\/www.hurriyetdailynews.com\/index\/cooperation\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cooperation <\/a>and building closer political relations, according to a joint statement issued on May 13.<\/p>\n<p>The Belgian Economic Mission, led by <a title=\"Belgium\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hurriyetdailynews.com\/index\/belgium\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Belgium<\/a>\u2019s Queen Mathilde on behalf of King Philippe, paid visits Istanbul and Ankara on May 10-14.<\/p>\n<p>Ankara welcomed a high-level Belgian delegation of more than 400 representatives, including federal and regional officials, as well as business people and academics.<\/p>\n<p>Queen Mathilde was received in Istanbul by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan and first lady Emine Erdo\u011fan.<\/p>\n<p>T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also met with Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot in Ankara on May 13, according to diplomatic sources.<\/p>\n<p>Fidan held talks with Prevot, who also serves as Belgium\u2019s minister of European affairs and development cooperation, during the Belgian Economic Mission\u2019s visit to T\u00fcrkiye, the sources added.<\/p>\n<p>Turkish Defense Minister Yasar G\u00fcler also met with his Belgian counterpart, Theo Francken.<\/p>\n<p>Francken was welcomed with a military ceremony at the Turkish Defense Ministry, where the national anthems of both countries were played before the Belgian minister inspected the honor guard.<\/p>\n<p>The two ministers later held closed-door talks, the ministry said.<\/p>\n<p>Following the meeting, a letter of intent was signed between T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s National Defense Ministry, the Presidency of Defense Industries, and Belgium\u2019s Defense Ministry.<\/p>\n<p>The signing ceremony was attended by T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s Defense Industries\u2019 Secretary Haluk G\u00f6rg\u00fcn and Lt. Gen. Bernard Phaleg, Belgium\u2019s national armaments director.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANKARA Ankara and Brussels described the Belgian Economic Mission\u2019s visit to T\u00fcrkiye as an important step toward strengthening&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,1596,3920],"class_list":["post-15610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-belgium","tag-cooperation","tag-trkiye"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116571659641592331","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}