Interview: China-Central Asia Summit to open up "ample opportunities" for prosperity and peace, says Turkish expert

ISTANBUL, May 19 (Xinhua) -- The China-Central Asia Summit is a source of "ample opportunities" for the prosperity and peace of the region, said Akkan Suver, head of the Istanbul-based Marmara Group Strategic and Social Research Foundation.

"This meeting, which will be at the heart of the historical Silk Road, is actually a new source of hope for the prosperity and peace of the region. It is a new beginning. This is how I consider it," Suver told Xinhua in a recent interview.

The two-day summit kicked off on Thursday in Xi'an, captial of China's northwestern Shaanxi Province, the starting point of the ancient Silk Road.

"As we are about to end the first quarter of the 21st century, it is difficult to predict from today what we will encounter in the future. But we are sure of one thing: rising Asia is a fact," Suver observed.

In recent years, China and Central Asian countries have deepened mutual political trust and beneficial cooperation, blazed a trail in good-neighborly friendship and win-win cooperation, and become a model for building new international relations, he said.

"Now the world's slogan is: live together, work together... It (the summit) is an opportunity for people to come side by side, know each other, get in contact through their language, religion, and export and import products."

He recalled President Xi Jinping's remarks last year at the Virtual Summit to Commemorate the 30th Anniversary of Diplomatic Relations Between China and Central Asian Countries.

"No matter how the international landscape may evolve or how developed China may grow, China will always remain a good neighbor, a good partner, a good friend, and a good brother that Central Asian countries can trust and count on," Xi said at the virtual summit.

Noting that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, Suver said the initiative has been making an outstanding contribution to regional and international economy and trade.

"Beyond being a trade route and a line connecting Asia to Europe and Africa as a historical and cultural value, the Belt and Road Initiative has opened the door to an extraordinary historical and cultural richness that bears traces of cultures, religions, and races living in the region," the expert pointed out.

"The Belt and Road Initiative realized through capital convergence, monetary and science integration, infrastructure networks, especially the improvement or restoration of railways and ports, is the project of an era," he said.

"I think the Belt and Road Initiative, whose foundations were laid 10 years ago, will be the key to achieving peace, trade, and prosperity in the future of our world."