MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Dmitry...
Monday was marked by two more events from Turkey, which only improve Ankara"s chances. On that day Mevlut Cavusoglu was elected president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), and the population of Turkey reached 72 million people, which is half of Russia"s population.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul"s meeting with his Pakistani and Afghan counterparts Asif Ali Zardari and Hamid Karzai is held in the run-up to the London conference on Afghanistan. It is no chance that Istanbul has become the venue for a comprehensive discussion aimed at finding alternative sources of income for Afghan farmers. So far they have earned their living producing heroin, trafficked to Western Europe through Russia.
This is not the first time Turkey organizes a meeting of the Afghan and Pakistani leaders, whose relations have been strained. In addition, Ankara has been coordinating the efforts of Muslim states to render assistance to Kabul.