BY ERDAL SAGLAM
HURRIYET- On his visit to the Mideast region, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is likely to talk with Israeli and Palestinians officials about ways of boosting economic cooperation between Turkey, Israel and Palestine. Erdogan is expected to lay out for them Turkey’s current efforts to establish a proper infrastructure for trilateral cooperation.
Last week’s Ankara meeting will be a trump card for Erdogan. The Ankara Forum held by Turkish, Israeli and Palestinian businessmen has yielded much more productive results than expected. The Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodities Exchanges (TOBB) scored a major victory by organizing such a historic event.
At the beginning of the meeting, the participants were told that Turkey does believe the forum will be beneficial to all relevant sides, stressing that a triple cooperation must be established as soon as possible. Turkish officials also requested that Israeli and Palestinian businessmen steer clear of a number of sensitive issues which are beyond the forum’s scope and ability to resolve.
For security reasons, Israel does not want Palestinians to do business in the regions near its territories. Therefore, instead of Palestinians, the Turkish private sector might make investments in these sensitive areas. Turkey has already signed free trade agreements with both countries. Therefore, industrial regions which Israel left will be revitalized thanks to this triple cooperation.
The forum also focused on establishing industrial and technoparks, constructing packaging and inventory stores in Palestinian territories, establishing insurance systems for Turkish investors, and developing new cooperation projects. In addition, faith tourism and infrastructure investments for highways and ports were two other significant issues discussed.
In other words, the three countries gave priority to the free movement of businessmen, goods and capital, and they tried to find ways to eliminate the current hurdles to these.
This was the first time coming together of Israeli and Palestinian private sector representatives. The meeting was very productive and is expected to yield positive results in the future. The TOBB, moreover, promised to help the Palestinian businessmen establish a system of chambers of commerce. Finally, this was a moderate initiative, which has brought about very important results. We hope this will have positive repercussions in the political arena as well.