ISTANBUL, April 22 (Xinhua) -- The newly elected mayor of Turkey's biggest city of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu on Monday pledged to boost relations with China in a wide range of areas.
Imamoglu made the remarks at a meeting with Cui Wei, the Chinese consul general in Istanbul.
"We have exchanged views on how we can be more active in developing new relations between the two countries in a variety of fields, including tourism," he told Xinhua at the end of the meeting.
Saying Cui's visit is the first ever made by a foreign mission head after he took office last Wednesday, the mayor said that "it is very precious for us."
For his part, Cui stressed that China and Turkey have a very sound and strong political, trade, cultural and economic relations.
"And Istanbul plays an important role in these ties," he said, noting Istanbul and China's biggest city of Shanghai are sister cities and marking the 30th anniversary of this relationship this year.
Cui said the meeting offers a chance to discuss with Imamoglu the celebrations between the two cities.
Imamoglu also promised to strengthen the commercial and cultural ties with Shanghai.
"We will work harder to make the 30th-anniversary celebrations more qualified," he said.
Imamoglu, the mayoral candidate for the main opposition Republican People's Party, won a narrow victory against his rival Binali Yildirim, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) candidate and a former prime minister, in the local elections held on March 31.
The AKP is challenging the results and has asked twice the country's top electoral board to cancel the results and rerun the election in Istanbul over what it calls "irregularities and mistakes" during the votes.
The electoral board is expected to give its final decision in the upcoming days.
