President of Mongolian Association of Local Authorities (MALA) Sundui Batbold and Mongolia’s Consul General in Istanbul Sharav Khishigsuren visited Union of Turkish World Municipalities (TDBB) on March 21, 2022.
During the meeting, TDBB Secretary General Fahri Solak stated that Mongolia is one of the countries they work closely with and that Mongolia is also represented in the Administrative Board of the Union. Solak said, “Due to the pandemic, our joint work has slowed down a bit. We are doing both sister city works and experience sharing programs with Mongolia. We sent masks to Mongolia under pandemic conditions. We can also cooperate with the Consulate General. We still have 33 municipality members from Mongolia, we would like to have more municipalities to TDBB. We would be happy if MALA coordinates this.” Solak also said, “Within the scope of projects that can be done together, we can do expert training and experience sharing programs in cooperation with sister cities. We can carry out mutual delegation visits between Turkey and Mongolia. We can hold one of the Administrative board meetings in Mongolia. We work with 30 countries, so the suggestions of the unions are important to us”.
On the other hand, President of Mongolian Association of Local Authorities (MALA) Sundui Batbold thanked for the hosting and expressed that they were pleased with the meeting and TDBB’s support for Mongolia. Batbold said, “Due to the epidemic, our relations have necessarily stagnated. Thank you for accepting us as a member and board member. I wanted to meet you face to face too. I would also like to thank the Consul General for his participation in this visit. I would like to ask you to support the development of our relations in the future as well. Both sides have historical partnerships, so our relations are very important. In this sense, I think we have important historical ties. I studied engineering and law. I was a member of parliament for four terms. I served as Minister of the Interior and Minister of State. I served as the governor and mayor of the capital Ulaanbaatar. Since 2005, I have been the President of Mongolian Association of Local Authorities. The Union was founded in 1994. We have members from 21 provinces and 330 districts in the Union. The only official union in the country is MALA. We have protocol with the Mongolian government. We provide professional support to local governments in the country. As MALA, we want to strengthen our relations with TDBB.”
The meeting ended with the exchange of gifts and a photo shoot to commemorate the day.
