On 15 December 2020, the Ambassador of Latvia, Pēteris Vaivars, presented his credentials to the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on taking up the post of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Latvia to the Republic of Turkey.
Turkey is an important NATO Ally engaged in active and multi-faceted bilateral cooperation. In their conversation, President Erdoğan and Ambassador Vaivars commended the current cooperation between Latvia and Turkey, discussed the close bilateral relations and identified the areas of cooperation to be further supported, including mutual trade, support for student exchange programmes, as well as closer contacts in defence.
The Latvian Ambassador, Pēteris Vaivars, thanked the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for a warm welcome to Turkey and he confirmed his intention to continue promoting Latvian-Turkish relations both through meetings with the senior Turkish officials in the near future and organizing bilateral visits as soon as possible.
Background information
Pēteris Vaivars began his career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1992 at the North Europe Division. From 1995 to 1997, he was First Secretary at the Latvian Embassy in Finland. Pēteris Vaivars has been posted as the Latvian Ambassador to Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Serbia, Montenegro, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the Republic of Korea. From 2002 to 2006, Vaivars was Head of the Administrative and Legal Directorate and Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Ministry, and from 2013 to 2016, the Under-Secretary of State, Administrative Director at the Latvian Foreign Ministry.