Turkish, Israeli and Palestinian presidents Abdullah Gul, Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas signed on Tuesday an agreement on building joint industrial zones in the West Bank, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.
According to the report, the agreement was signed in a tripartite meeting at the Cankaya Presidential Palace within the scope of the Ankara Forum which started early in the day. According to the agreement, a joint industrial zone will be established in the West Bank, to house some 200 factories and provide working opportunities for Palestinians and Israelis.
The first zone will be estanlished in Tarqumia and the second one in Jenin under the leadership of Turkey's Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges.
Implementation of Turkey's "Organized Industrial Zone" model will also help to attract investments to the region and develop the region's economy in the medium and long-term, the report added. Turkey hopes the project will also allow goods produced there to enter the United States, the European Union, and Gulf countries.
Israel will provide security for the planned zones and allow the produced goods to be shipped out by sea and air routes.
The project, launched by Gul when he was foreign minister in 2005, initially called for the reconstruction of the Erez industrial zone on the northern part of the Gaza Strip, but the project was frozen after Hamas gained control of the region.
On Teusday, the Turkish president conveyed the concrete step taken to establish industrial zones in the Palestinian territories would encourage compromise on political issues. "The concrete step taken today shows the political will of the presidents of Israel and Palestine prior to the Annapolis meeting in the United States," he said.
For his part, Peres attached great importance to the agreement which he described as a win-win agreement, adding that "the project will yield important results for the region and contribute to peace process."
