Senate President Dr Augustin Iyamuremye on Tuesday received the Ambassador of Germany, Dr Thomas Kurz and his Turkish counterpart, Burku Cevik, with whom he discussed relations between Rwanda and both countries, particularly their parliaments.
It was the envoys’ first visit to the new Senate president since he assumed office in the Upper Chamber in October.
On the table of discussions with the German Ambassador, Iyamuremye told the media that they were looking on how both countries can enhance parliamentary cooperation.
Iyamuremye said, besides a number of German projects in Rwanda, the current state of parliamentary relations between both countries was also promising and can get even better.
"During the visit, we agreed to maintain our relations through friendly parliamentary visits between our countries. Our parliaments have been visiting each other, but what we want, most importantly, is that our cooperation grows stronger and that is what was at the centre of our discussions during the Ambassador’s visit,” Iyamuremye said.
"Some departments in the parliament, especially from the senate, are still visiting each other to share experiences and we hope more are in store to improve our parliaments in a broad way, as well,” he added.
Rwanda’s cooperation with Germany has seen commendable progress in the past years.
The country has had special cooperation with Germany’s Rhineland Palatinate, which has successfully been realized mostly in supporting infrastructure development, health and education sectors, promotion and exchange of culture and sports and capacity building for those engaged in the implementation of partnership activities in Rwanda.
Amb. Kurz reaffirmed that discussions on Germany’s bilateral relations with Rwanda focused on the state of the Senate and the political system in Rwanda so that both countries can exchange experiences through friendly parliamentary visits.
"We do have a project to bring parliaments further together to have more visits of parliamentarians from Germany to Rwanda and from Rwanda to Germany,” he said.
Concerning bilateral relations with Turkey, Iyamuremye said Rwanda was happy with where the relations between both countries stands so far though it has not been there for long.
"Our relations can be defined by actions. For instance, the Kigali Convention Center and the Kigali Arena were both built by a Turkish construction firm; we have a peat plant in Gisagara District which is also under construction by a Turkish company, not forgetting trade relations… all these are a testament that our relations are getting better and we are happy for the progress made so far,” he said.
Turkey established an Embassy in Rwanda in 2014 and Cevik said she was excited to see how the relations are very quickly improving in every field from economic trade, investments in different sectors, in education, cultural exchanges as well as political exchanges and that the discussions with the Senate president were intended to see how both countries could work to make their cooperation even more comprehensive.
"The focus of partnership is of course to establish mutual benefits between both our countries. We see Rwanda as the right partner in our African policy and we would like to have more high-level exchanges between our countries. Our cooperation lies in enhancing our relations in every field, including education, culture, defence and security,” she said.