Trade deal to boost Turkey-UK strategic partnership: British envoy

A free trade deal (FTA) signed between Turkey and the United Kingdom will help the two allied nations to create a strategic partnership with effects beyond trade and economy, the British envoy to Ankara has said, informing that Ankara and London have also agreed to negotiate on a more ambitious and comprehensive agreement.  

"All those factors strengthen bilateral relations, and other things being equal, contribute towards creating a strategic, as opposed to transactional, partnership. So the consequences of our new FTA and the phase 2 FTA in future won't stop at trade or the economy, although they will, self-evidently, be very important for them," British Ambassador Sir Dominick Chilcott has told the Hürriyet Daily News in an exclusive interview. 

The FTA between the two countries was signed on the last days of 2020, immediately after the U.K. and the European Union compromised on a trade and cooperation agreement to avoid a no-deal Brexit.  

Turkey and the U.K. have signed an important tariff-free trade deal. I understand that talks will continue for a more comprehensive trade deal between the two countries. Could you please provide more details about what we have signed and what we will presumably sign in the future?  

We have signed a Free Trade Agreement safeguarding a very big trading relationship, which the U.K.'s departure from the EU and the EU's trade agreements with Turkey could have endangered. We have avoided that with our new FTA, which will ensure the continued tariff-free flow of goods and protects vital U.K.-Turkey supply chains in the automotive and other manufacturing sectors.

The U.K.-Turkey FTA, as far as possible, takes as its model the arrangements in the EU-Turkey Customs Union and...