Turkey’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu has reached India on a crucial three-day official visit. This is his first visit to India. India’s Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup says, “The entire gamut of bilateral relations as well as multilateral and regional issues is likely to be discussed during the talks.” Talks between the Ministers are to be held on Friday. Mevlut Cavusoglu is also scheduled to visit Hyderabad on August 20 to officially open the Turkish Consulate building.
On August 7, Turkish consul-general in Mumbai Erdal Sabri Ergen had said, "In the aftermath of a coup attempt in Turkey, we have found some connection in India, Mumbai, of the perpetrators…. This outfit (Gulen) also poses a grave threat to India's internal security and we have written to the Indian government and placed the details before them."
In a letter received by the Indian Home Ministry, Turkey has demanded a crackdown on all organizations linked to the Gulenist network spread across Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and other places.
K P Fabian, a former Indian diplomat, in his research paper for Institute of Defense and Strategic Analyses, writes, “Turkey’s hopes of gaining entry into the EU fades away. Austria has called on the EU to break off talks with Turkey on its admission. The bone of contention between Turkey and the EU is the latter’s delay in granting visa-free entry to Turkish citizens to the Schengen area in return for Turkey taking back illegal migrants who had entered Greece. The deadline for the deal was June 2016. While Turkey is insisting that the deal be formalized by October, the signals from Brussels indicate that it might not happen any time this year. Most probably, the EU is not going to agree to the visa-free entry of Turks in the near future.”
Bilateral relations between India and Turkey have been sustained and strengthened through regular high-level exchanges. Bilateral trade is also increasing and hit US$ 6.3 billion last year. Cavusoglu’s visit is likely to boost trade further as Turkey is in dire need to explore new avenues for trade.
