A week ago, Kyrgyz Prime Minister Almazbek Sharshenovich Atambayev arrived in Turkey for a two-day visit, meeting with top officials and attending the Turkey-Kyrgyzstan Trade and Investment Forum organised by Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists.

"This is exactly the time to invest [in Kyrgyzstan]," Atambayev said in Ankara. "We are brothers and friends. We have a history we are proud of. Our future will also be common and glorious."

Despite the cultural and historical ties, the two countries have struggled to boost bilateral economic ties.

"Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have gas. Kazakhstan has oil and gas. Tajikistan has aluminum," explained Oleg Samukhin, transport economist from the USAID Regional Trade Liberalisation and Customs Project. "Kyrgyzstan does not have much to offer."

Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s second- biggest carmaker, was chosen to supply New York’s next fleet of yellow taxi cabs, a deal city officials valued at $1 billion over 10 years.

Nissan beat out proposals from two other finalists in the “Taxi of Tomorrow” competition: Ford Motor Co. (F) and Karsan Otomotiv Sanayi & Ticaret AS of Turkey, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said today. The automaker’s NV200 minivan will become the new standard, eventually replacing the city’s 13,237-car fleet, which now consists of 16 models.

Heating up the campaign for the coming parliamentary elections, Turkey’s governing party on Wednesday unveiled a proposal to build a canal parallel to Istanbul’s Bosporus that would be longer than either the Panama or Suez canals.

Details of the plan, which has been speculated about privately in recent months as the “crazy project” of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had been kept under wraps, but on Wednesday it immediately became the centerpiece of his party’s bid for a third term in power.

The pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party, known as the AKP, foresees a 28- to 30-mile canal connecting the Black Sea in the north to the Marmara Sea in the southwest that would be a safer alternative for heavy tanker ships than the natural Bosporus straits, which run through the heart of Istanbul, a city of around 15 million people.

The plan aims to divert ship traffic along the Bosporus that sometimes numbers 149 tankers a day carrying natural gas, crude oil, chemicals and other industrial goods.

The Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) and the Turkish Cultural Foundation (TCF) were honored to host Congressman John Boehner (R-OH), the Speaker of the House, at a dinner in Washington, D.C.
 
Speaker Boehner was joined at the dinner by Congresswoman Ileana Ros Lehtinen (R-FL), chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as well as Congressman Ed Whitfield (R-KY) and Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-VA), two co-chairs of the Turkey Caucus.