Foreign Minister of the Republic of Turkey, Mr İsmail Cem will travel to Ohri, the Republic of Macedonia, on 14 July 2000 to attend the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the Southeast European Cooperation Process (SEECP), the last Ministerial Meeting of which was held in Bucharest last December. During his trip Foreign Minister Cem will be accompanied by a group of high-ranking officials of the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

The importance of this meeting derives from the fact that it will be the first Ministerial Meeting following the signing, at the Bucharest Summit Meeting of 12 February 2000, of the Charter on Good Neighbourly Relations, Stability, Security and Cooperation which officially institutionalized the Process. As will be recalled, this Charter was proposed by Turkey at the Antalya Summit Meeting of 1998.

At the Ohri Ministerial Meeting views on the stability, security and democratic developments in Southeast Europe will be exchanged; the activities realized under the Stability Pact for Southeast Europe since its inception a year ago will be evaluated and the harmonization of the approaches and efforts of the SEECP countries on the projects to be materialized within the Stability Pact will be discussed. At the margins of the meeting the Foreign Ministers of the participating countries will have an opportunity to have bilateral talks with their counterparts.