Türkiye and Georgia will continue to work "shoulder to shoulder" for regional cooperation, peace and development, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday.

Speaking at a joint press conference with visiting Georgian President Mikheil Kavelashvili following their meeting, Erdogan said the two countries, beyond being neighbors, are strategic partners bound by deep historical, cultural, and human ties, and built on a strong economic foundation.

Bilateral trade volume has exceeded 3 billion U.S. dollars in recent years, with a new target of 5 billion dollars, he said.

Erdogan called the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line, a 826-km freight and passenger link launched in 2017, "the backbone of the Middle Corridor" connecting the East and the West, adding that the commencement of its operations in full capacity is "of great importance."

For his part, Kavelashvili, who is on a two-day official visit to Türkiye, praised the strategic partnership and friendship between the two countries, and thanked Türkiye for its steadfast support of Georgia's sovereignty, territorial integrity, and EU membership bid.

Kavelashvili underscored Türkiye's role in promoting security in the Black Sea, and invited Erdogan to visit Georgia.

He also stressed the importance of the Türkiye-Georgia-Azerbaijan trilateral cooperation mechanism for regional stability and development.

Meanwhile, according to a series of posts published by Kavelashvili on the social media platform X following the meeting, the two sides also expressed readiness to deepen bilateral political, economic and cultural cooperation, and discussed developments in the Middle East.