After a tour of several days in Kuwait and Qatar, the Argentine president, Cristina Kirchner, has made an official visit to Turkey, from 19 to 21 January last.
This trip, the first Turkish head of state of Argentina past 19 years, was mainly an opportunity to work towards strengthening economic ties between the two countries. A business forum between Turkey and Argentina was also held on this occasion, January 21 at the Conrad Hotel in Istanbul. The two emerging states, G20, link GDP rankings établi par le FMI et la Banque mondiale, respectivement à la 17ème place (en ce qui concerne la Turquie), et à la 30ème place (en ce qui concerne l’Argentine). L’un et l’autre ont vécu des crises économiques et financières similaires, dans le passé, et connaissent une forte croissance, aujourd’hui. La présidente argentine a insisté sur la nécessité de profiter des opportunités actuelles, tout en veillant à se prémunir contre les effets dévastateurs de la crise globale en cours. De surcroît, résumant ses intentions par la phrase suivante : «Nous ne voulons pas que l’on nous considère seulement comme une vache», elle also wanted to convey to his Turkish interlocutors that his country had become very active in areas with high added value, such as nuclear power, biofuels or producing pharmaceuticals.
For its part, Turkey, high consumption of meat is very interested in the agri-food Argentine, but the visit of Cristina Kirchner was also an opportunity for her to reaffirm its international bottom-up and confirm its intention to enter the South American continent. "We want to develop our respective investments ... Turkish companies are already present Argentina, we hope that Argentine companies will invest in Turkey, "said President Abdullah Gul, who received his Argentine counterpart and signed several agreements with it, including a protocol on civil aviation. This should help bring the two countries specifically, since "Turkish Airlines" will soon be able to open a direct flight between Istanbul and Buenos Aires.
Politically, the contributions from the visit of Cristina Kirchner remained more limited. The two countries have indeed been a complex relationship that Argentina recognized the Armenian Genocide in 2004. These difficulties have been revived last year on the tour of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in South America. After his participation in the Third Forum of the Alliance of Civilizations in Brazil, May 28, Turkish Prime Minister had decided to cancel his stay in Argentina, having been informed that a demonstration organized by the Armenian diaspora, might disturb the unveiling of a statue of Ataturk on which he was invited.
Beyond this incident, we can observe that the political relations that Turkey has with Argentina are far from reaching those it has developed with neighboring Brazil, in recent months. On May 17, 2010, regarding the Iranian nuclear issue, Ankara and Brasilia had defied the United States, signing with Tehran, an agreement for an exchange of enriched uranium, which claimed to offer an alternative to sanctions that the major powers' s were preparing to vote against the Islamic Republic. Subsequently, June 9, 2010, Turkey and Brazil had refused to support sanctions at their adoption by the Security Council of the UN. The two countries had wanted to ask as well on the international stage, emerging political powers, challenging governance of the world provided by the only permanent members of the UN body. If Argentina is far from the positions in Brazil, especially as regards the Iranian nuclear issue, no doubt it also intends in the coming years, giving a political tone to its economic success. To do this, visit the Turkish president will probably not be useless.
JM
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