Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan underlined the importance of the Caspian-transit East-West Middle Corridor, calling it the "modern-day equivalent of the Silk Road", writes aa.com.tr.

During a press conference in Kazakhstan, Erdogan said the corridor’s importance is being better understood with each passing day. Noting that they had "successfully" held the Sixth Meeting of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council and signed numerous documents, the Turkish president said that the meeting with Kazakh counterpart Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and his delegation addressed cooperation in areas such as trade, transportation, energy, health, mining, culture, education, technology, and the defense industry.

"On the occasion of the Türkiye-Kazakhstan Business Forum, which we will address together with Mr. Tokayev, we will hopefully witness new areas of cooperation between our businesspeople. Today, we also discussed projects that will further advance our military and defense industry cooperation, which has a multiplier effect on our trade and investment relations. I wish them success in advance", he added.

He vowed that Ankara will continue promoting the corridor with Kazakhstan and other partners for cargo shipments and transporting energy resources to the West: "We wish to transport larger volumes of oil from Kazakhstan, one of the world`s leading crude oil exporters, to global markets via our country".