Turkey seeks involvement in free trade pact between U.S., Europe

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey is pushing for involvement in a proposed free trade pact between the United States and Europe which it fears could leave it sidelined and hamper its ambitions to become a top 10 economy over the next decade, Reuters reported.

Trade was high on the agenda in a meeting on Thursday, May 16, between U.S. President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish leader is worried a deal could hurt his nation's commerce with Europe and the United States.

Erdogan wrote to Obama earlier this year raising concern about the impact of such a deal on Turkey, most of whose trade is with Europe, and urged Washington to work in parallel on a similar deal with Ankara, Turkish officials said.

"As the United States pursues a new trade and investment partnership with the EU, I want to make sure that we also keep deepening our economic ties with Turkey," Obama told a joint news conference with Erdogan at the White House.

He stopped short of saying any sort of free trade agreement was under discussion with Turkey, but said Washington and Ankara had created a "new high-level committee" aimed at increasing mutual trade and investment.

Washington and Brussels are expected to begin talks on the proposed trade pact in July and hope to finish in one to two years. If successful, the final agreement would cover half the world's economic output and about a third of global trade.

Turkey has a customs agreement with the European Union under which a third country signing a trade deal with the EU gets automatic access to Turkish markets, but Turkey does not get the same reciprocal benefit for its exports.

Several options were under discussion, a Turkish official said, including a separate bilateral agreement with the United States or giving Turkey a seat at the table in the EU negotiations, although one diplomat said that looked unlikely.

Erdogan said trade with the United States had more than doubled to $20 billion from $8 billion when he first took office a decade ago but said it still needed to be boosted further.