Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced the deposit of $ 5 billion as a deposit in the Turkish Central Bank through the Saudi Fund for Development, on Monday.
And a press release stated that the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Saudi Fund for Development, Ahmed bin Aqil Al-Khatib, signed in Turkey an agreement worth $ 5 billion as a deposit in favor of the Central Bank of Turkey. The agreement was signed on the Turkish side by the Governor of the Central Bank of Turkey, Shihab Kavji Oglu.
The statement added that this deposit comes “as an extension of the historical relations and close bonds of cooperation that bind the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with the Turkish Republic and its brotherly people.”
The statement indicated that the deposit came under the directives of the Saudi monarch, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, and his crown prince, Prince Muhammad bin Salman.
This step comes days after the UAE and Turkey signed the “Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement” in the presence of the UAE President, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, via video call.
And the Saudi-Turkish relations witnessed a great development over the past months, as Erdogan visited Saudi Arabia in April of 2022, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited Turkey in June of the same year.
It is noteworthy that relations between Saudi Arabia and Turkey deteriorated significantly after the killing of the Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in his country’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018.