ankara prime minister atal bihari vajpayee on wednesday held wideranging talks with his turkish counterpart recep tayyip erdogan on a host of issues including ways to combat terrorism and the evolving situation in neighbouring iraq vajpayee who is on threeday visit to turkey the first by an indian prime minister in 15 years was accorded a ceremonial reception by erdogan before the start of the talks the agenda of vajpayees parleys with turkish president ahmet nacdet sezer and erdogan includes issues of mutual concern including the us draft resolution for a multilateral force in iraq and the west asia crisis new delhi feels that political and economic factors provide immense potential for enhancing indoturkish cooperationour relations with turkey are as old as its great civilisation we are now witnessing a new commitment and surge to our cooperation we share common values on secularism and democracy vajpayee told reporters accompanying himvajpayee the first indian prime minister to visit turkey since rajiv gandhis trip in 1988 said bilateral exchanges had intensified and trade increased significantly vajpayee began his engagements on wednesday morning by laying a wreath at the mausoleum of kemal ataturk founder of modern turkey a number of agreements and protocols in various fields including one on the establishment of a joint working group on terrorism and those relating to extradition science and technology information technology and computer software would be initialled during his visit on thursday vajpayee will attend a ceremony to name a road and also unveil a bust of indias nobel laureate rabindranath tagore before flying to the historic city of istanbul where he will call on president sezer he will also open an experience india exhibition in which 42 indian companies are participating and address a business meet in which 50 representatives of ficci cii and assocham would take part bilateral trade continued to be in indias favour with exports touching 564 million in 2002 while imports from turkey totalled only 70 million the main items of indias exports were tea iron ore finished leather drugs pharmaceuticals jute enamel and varnishesthe two countries also have a civil aviation agreement and turkish airways is likely to start its direct flight from istanbul to delhi shortly