UPDATE - Turkey, Montenegro agree to boost inter-parliamentary cooperation

ADDS DETAILS ON SENTOP'S VISIT TO HISTORIC PLACES

By Talha Ozturk

BELGRADE, Serbia (AA) - Turkey and Montenegro agreed Thursday to strengthen cooperation between their legislative assemblies.

Turkey's parliament speaker Mustafa Sentop met with his Montenegrin counterpart Aleksa Becic in the capital, Podgorica.

During the meeting, it was agreed that the common historical heritage between the two countries contributed to the continuous progress in relations between their parliaments.

The two sides also signed an inter-parliamentary cooperation agreement during Sentop's visit.

Underlining that the parliaments of the two countries were already in cooperation with each other, Sentop said the new protocol would strengthen its groundwork.

"We will have exchanged important information on sharing good practices and experiences in this regard. I think that this will especially benefit the work of our parliamentary teams and bureaucrats. In this way, we're going to deepen our relations at the parliamentary level."

For his part, Becic emphasized that Turkey-Montenegro ties were at "the highest level in history."

"At our meeting, we agreed that we've written the most beautiful pages of our long and rich common history with many meetings we held this year," he said.

He added that the Montenegrin diaspora in Turkey was an important and strong bridge of cooperation between the two countries.​​​​​​​

Following the bilateral meetings, Sentop visited the historic Mehmet Fatih Madrasah in Tuzi, a small town in Montenegro, accompanied by the president of the Montenegro Islamic Union, Rifat Feyzic, and Turkey's ambassador to Montenegro Songul Ozan.

Meeting students studying there, Sentop said Montenegro is a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic country, adding that: “We have only one message: to establish an environment in the whole world where people can live in peace according to their own beliefs."

Sentop later visited the Nizam Mosque in Tuzi, which was restored by the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA).