China and Turkey on Friday issued a joint declaration on the establishment and development of a strategic relationship of cooperation, further upgrading the level of bilateral relations.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (L, back) and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R, back) attend a signing ceremony in Ankara, capital of Turkey, Oct. 8, 2010, as officials from both sides signed eight pacts to improve economic and cultural cooperation. [Xinhua]

The two emerging developing countries agreed to maintain the momentum of high-level exchange of visits, deepen political mutual trust, expand bilateral friendly exchanges and formally launch a mechanism of joint working group of the two foreign ministries, the declaration said.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was in Turkey for an official visit Thursday through Saturday at the invitation of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

During his visit, Premier Wen met with President Abdullah Gul and held talks with Prime Minister Erdogan. In a frank, friendly and pragmatic atmosphere, leaders of the two countries had an in-depth exchange of views on how to further expand and deepen China-Turkey mutually beneficiary cooperation in all fields and on regional as well as international issues of common interest, reaching broad consensus, the declaration said.

The two sides made an overall review of and highly appraised the development of bilateral relations and expressed satisfaction over the fruitful achievements in the relations.

It is the shared view of the two sides that as emerging developing countries, both China and Turkey are at an important stage of development, the declaration said.