ISTANBUL - State Minister Kursat Tuzmen said on Sunday that Turkish businessmen set up business contact worth of 300 million dollars during their visit to Syria.
Speaking at Ataturk Airport after returning from Syria, Tuzmen said that his meetings in Syria were very productive.
Noting that Turkey and Syria signed a memorandum of understanding during his visit, Tuzmen said that ''the memorandum of understanding mentions Turkey's will to sign a final free trade agreement with Syria and signing a preferential trade agreement before that. We signed the memorandum of understanding in issues of reducing customs taxes reciprocally, opening border trade centers particularly in border gates of Oncupýnar, Cilvegozu, Nusaybin and Karkamis in Gaziantep, Kilis, Hatay and Mardin provinces, supporting these centers reciprocally and making the area a broader free zone in the future.''
Tuzmen said that the memorandum of understanding also included the documents about the agreement on prevention of double taxation, reciprocal encouragement of investments, customs cooperation agreement and agreements in energy field.
Tuzmen stressed that they demanded Syria to decrease the city tolls, to give the same advantages to Turkish firms in tenders like the ones given to other countries, adding that Turkish firms set up business connections worth of 300 million dollars during the visit. ''This figure will increase in the coming term. The trade volume between Turkey and Syria is around 750 million dollars. We believe that we will increase it to 1.5 billion dollars at the first stage and then to 3 billion dollars in the medium term,'' Tuzmen said.
Tuzmen remarked that the two countries would hold the Joint Economic Commission meeting in the beginning of May.
Noting that they also search ways of cooperation in tourism sector, Tuzmen said that they would arrange Ro-Ro transportation especially between Mersin and al-Ladhiqiyah and joint tourism packages would be made. He added that they discussed opening of old Ottoman cities to tourism as highlights of a package tour. Ways for providing facilities for travel agencies of both countries to support each other were also discussed, he said.
Tuzmen said that the efforts of Syria and Turkey started to yield result in the last two-three years, and he added that the memorandum of understanding also included mutual evaluation, search and development of oil reserves.
When asked whether a possible Iraq operation was brought into agenda during the meetings, Tuzmen said that Prime Minister and all the ministers with whom he met were in favor of a peaceful solution because any difficulty in the region would affect two neighbor countries. He added that Syria and Turkey wanted peaceful solution to prevent negative consequences on their economy.
Noting that They always voiced the negative influences of difficulties that emerged in the region to Turkish economy, Tuzmen said that they wanted a peaceful solution in the region to decrease this negative influence. ''We said that permanent commercial relations would provide permanent political relations,'' he added.
Upon a question whether a second Peace Summit would be held in Istanbul, Tuzmen said ''It can be held. Prime Ministers of the region are talking on the phone continuously. I think that there can be a summit meeting which they will determine.''