{"id":23833,"date":"2010-10-19T04:04:37","date_gmt":"2010-10-19T01:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=23833"},"modified":"2014-01-05T21:11:56","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T19:11:56","slug":"gulf-turkey-hold-new-round-of-partnership-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/10\/19\/gulf-turkey-hold-new-round-of-partnership-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"Gulf, Turkey hold new round of partnership talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"KUWAIT CITY \u2014 Foreign ministers of energy-rich Gulf monarchies and Turkey on Sunday held a new round of talks aimed at boosting economic and political ties and signing a free trade agreement.<\/p>\n

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the meeting agreed to form working teams on economic and cultural sectors including transport, education and health.<\/p>\n

“The teams will jointly study cooperation plans… so the GCC and Turkey will be integrated in all economic aspects,” Davutoglu told reporters.<\/p>\n

“We believe that Turkey and the GCC have the same objectives in many fields,” he said.<\/p>\n

Kuwait’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Sabah, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), said the meeting also discussed several political issues.<\/p>\n

A programme to develop strategic ties between the two parties was agreed, he said.<\/p>\n

Opening the meeting earlier, Sheikh Mohammad said GCC-Turkey trade has grown rapidly.<\/p>\n

The GCC and Turkey in September 2008 signed a memorandum of understanding to achieve a strategic partnership in all fields between the pro-Western Arab bloc and Ankara.<\/p>\n

Sheikh Mohammad said trade between the GCC and Turkey grew from 1.5 billion dollars (1.1 billion euros) in 1999 to 17.5 billion dollars (12.5 billion euros) in 2008.<\/p>\n

In 2008, GCC exports to Turkey rose five times over 2007 and imports from Ankara increased a massive 15-fold, he said.<\/p>\n

But GCC secretary general Abdulrahman al-Attiyah told the meeting that although there was some progress in certain aspects of cooperation, obstacles to a free trade agreement still existed.<\/p>\n

Attiyah said that a joint economic cooperation committee was formed this year to activate a framework trade agreement signed in 2005 with the ultimate aim of striking a free trade accord.<\/p>\n

The two blocs were also boosting security and counter-terrorism cooperation and discussing a proposal for a rail link between them, he said.<\/p>\n

“Negotiations (on a free trade agreement) are still facing obstacles hindering its conclusion,” Attiyah said without elaborating.<\/p>\n

The GCC groups Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KUWAIT CITY \u2014 Foreign ministers of energy-rich Gulf monarchies and Turkey on Sunday held a new round of talks aimed at boosting economic and political ties and signing a free trade agreement. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the meeting agreed to form working teams on economic and cultural sectors including transport, education and health. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":23834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[429,428,509,510,192,237],"tags":[3981],"class_list":["post-23833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bahrain","category-kuwait","category-oman","category-qatar","category-saudi-arabia","category-uae","tag-gulf-cooperation-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23833","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=23833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}