ISLAMABAD  -  President Asif Ali Zardari and President of Turkiye Recep Tayy­ip Erdogan on Sun­day called for further strengthening of bilat­eral relations between the two countries in various fields.

The two leaders spoke over the phone and discussed mat­ters of mutual interest, a post on President of Pakistan X account said.

President Zardari felicitated the Turk­ish President on the forthcoming Eid-ul-Fitr and invited him to visit Pakistan, besides expressing his best wishes for him and the people of Turkiye, another related X post said. “The two called for further strengthen­ing bilateral relations in various fields,” the statement added. Dur­ing their phone call, President Zardari fe­licitated the Turkish president on the forth­coming Eid-ul-Fitr. 

Moreover, the head of state also extended an invitation to Erdogan, inviting him to visit Pak­istan. He also expressed his best wishes for the president of Turkey and its people. On March 10, Zardari took oath as country’s head of state for the second time af­ter being elected as the 14th president with a big margin. for the second time after being elected as the 14th president with a big mar­gin. Zardari, who was the joint candidate of the rul­ing alliance, was elect­ed as the country’s pres­ident after he defeated Pakistan Tehreek-e-In­saf (PTI)-backed Sunni It­tehad Council (SIC) can­didate Mahmood Khan Achakzai by a huge mar­gin. The president secured 411 electoral votes in par­liament and all four pro­vincial assemblies with the backing of allied par­ties — mainly Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Muttahi­da Qaumi Movement-Pa­kistan (MQM-P). Zardari earlier served as the 11th president of Pakistan from 2008 to 2013 and has been a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan since August 2018.