Global Security Newswire, 10 Jan 2012.

Turkey and Japan have jointly decided to focus on relaunching formal talks for an atomic trade deal, Kyodo News reported on Sunday (see GSN, June 15, 2010).

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba noted the new nuclear cooperation discussions following a one-on-one meeting in Ankara, where the two foreign policy chiefs also discussed Western nations' efforts to pressure Iran to give up its controversial nuclear work (see related story, GSN).

Ankara and Tokyo pledged to begin a series of minister-rank talks on a nuclear trade agreement, Genba said.

Turkey intends to construct three atomic energy production sites no later than 2023. Bilateral discussions with Tokyo on an atomic cooperation accord as well as a deal to build Turkey's second atomic energy plant were broken off  following last March's atomic disaster at the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi plant (Kyodo News/Japan Times, Jan. 8).

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