President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic on Friday hailed a long-term commitment to cooperation in the defense industry to protect regional peace.

"Türkiye and Serbia are friends and we have opportunities to enhance our cooperation. We must take steps together but these must be the constitution of a defense industry based on the protection of peace," Erdoğan told reporters at a joint news conference with Vucic in Belgrade.

Erdoğan arrived in the Serbian capital from Albania for the second stage of his Balkan tour. He was welcomed personally by Vucic and Belgrade's streets were decorated with Turkish and Serbian flags ahead of his visit.

He and Vucic chaired strategic inter-delegation talks and held a bilateral meeting before signing 11 agreements from trade to tourism to bolster ties, with defense at the forefront.

According to Erdoğan, the steps for security cooperation will also include Turkish drones for Serbia.

Vucic sang the praises of Türkiye’s homegrown defense industry and Erdoğan’s "method of working and attitude to protecting regional peace that will benefit both nations."

"Serbia knows what it needs from Türkiye and we have ideas about how we can develop (the defense industry) further in the future," Vucic said.

Seemingly hitting out at criticism of Turkish-Serbian rapprochement, Erdoğan assured, "Only we decide what our defense industry cooperation entails," and said the two leaders have instructed their officials to hammer out the details and "utilize our means as well as possible."

Türkiye made a major political comeback in Serbia in 2017 when Erdoğan made a landmark visit to Belgrade.

At the time, Erdoğan and Vucic mended ties between their countries.

Five centuries of the Ottoman presence in Serbia have weighed heavily on relations between Belgrade and Ankara.

Kosovo and Bosnia

Another source of tension has been the cultural and historical ties between Türkiye and Serbia's former breakaway province of Kosovo. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a move Belgrade still refuses to recognize.

Tensions between Kosovo and Serbia have prevailed despite efforts for normalization by actors in their wider region to turn down the heat.

The two Western Balkan countries have always been at odds as Belgrade refused to recognize Pristina’s independence from it in 2008 and continues to claim it as its own territory. But more recently, a series of actions by the Kosovo government, such as making the euro the sole legal currency and outlawing the Serbian dinar in predominantly Serb-populated areas, have sparked unrest.

Erdoğan said he told Vucic about the need for Belgrade to have "common sense" in its approach to the tensions with Kosovo.

"We confirmed our countries’ commitment to protecting stability in Bosnia. I also emphasized the significance of Serbia having a constructive approach to overcoming the political fragility in Bosnia," he added.

Trade boom

The Balkans is a success story for Türkiye, whom Vucic called "the biggest, strongest country" in the Balkans.

"We expect their support," he said.

Even though the rapprochement between Ankara and Belgrade is relatively recent, the economic ties between the two countries are already significant.

Turkish investments in Serbia have increased from $1 million to $400 million in the past decade, according to the Türkiye-Serbia Business Council, quoted in June by Türkiye's Anadolu Agency (AA).

Turkish exports to Serbia reached $2.13 billion in 2022, up from $1.14 billion in 2020, according to Serbian official figures.

Erdoğan similarly said Türkiye and Serbia were determined to boost their bilateral trade volume to $5 billion and thanked Serbia for its treatment of Turkish businesspeople in the country. More than 11,000 Turkish workers are contributing to Serbia’s construction sector while Turkish businesses provide jobs for 9,600 Serbians.