{"id":22590,"date":"2010-09-28T08:10:23","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T06:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=22590"},"modified":"2023-04-15T19:23:46","modified_gmt":"2023-04-15T16:23:46","slug":"four-in-middle-east-to-open-free-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/09\/28\/four-in-middle-east-to-open-free-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Four in Middle East to open free trade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-22591\" title=\"Davud Oglu Leads The Way\" src=\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/Davud-Oglu-Leads-The-Way.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"314\" height=\"235\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/Davud-Oglu-Leads-The-Way.jpg 314w, https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/Davud-Oglu-Leads-The-Way-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 314px) 100vw, 314px\" \/>NEW YORK, Sept. 27 (UPI) &#8212; <strong>Turkish Foreign Minister <\/strong><strong>Ahmet Davutoglu<\/strong><strong> said Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey had agreed to move forward on a regional free-trade zone.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Davutoglu told reporters in New York that a summit meeting in Istanbul would likely concluded with an announcement that<strong> the four-country trade agreement<\/strong>, including &#8220;visa-free&#8221; travel for the region, would begin in January.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We will declare at that summit that this economic zone is in effect,&#8221; Davutoglu said after meeting with foreign ministers of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon at U.N. Headquarters, Today&#8217;s Zaman reported.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey and Lebanon have already entered into a formal free-trade and visa-free arrangement with a deal signed this summer.<\/p>\n<p>But the deal may well be a first step towards a Middle East version of the European Union, Today&#8217;s Zaman reported.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey has been openly pursuing membership to the EU since 2005, but the application process has moved slowly.<\/p>\n<p>In New York, Davutoglu said, <strong>&#8220;The EU is of course a good model of cooperation and we can look into it. But this cooperation, after all, is a product of our history.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>https:\/\/www.upi.com\/Business_News\/2010\/09\/27\/Four-in-Middle-East-to-open-free-trade\/UPI-79101285623196\/, Sept. 27, 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK, Sept. 27 (UPI) &#8212; Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey had agreed to move forward on a regional free-trade zone. Davutoglu told reporters in New York that a summit meeting in Istanbul would likely concluded with an announcement that the four-country trade agreement, including &#8220;visa-free&#8221; travel for the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":22591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[846,21,244,183,56,89],"tags":[3717,3716],"class_list":["post-22590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-eu-members","category-jordan","category-lebanon","category-syria","category-turkey","tag-free-trade","tag-the-economy-and-trade-association-for-neighboring-countries-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}