United Kingdom determined to strengthen relations with Turkey after Brexit

There is no doubt that Turkey and the UK have been two friendly partners in many areas for a long while. In fact the trade relations between two countries have consistently improved as well as the support of UK for Turkey in the int’l arena regarding many issues. To parallel the above observation Mr. Dominick CHILCOTT, the British Ambassador to Ankara has shared important points with reporters at a meeting in Ankara, regarding the future of Turkey-UK relations.

In the meeting with reporters, the ambassador reminded that the UK was officially leaving the European Union and said, “We are now a third country for the EU. Mr. Chilcott said they needed time to negotiate their post-Brexit relationship with the EU, adding: “We are like a member state until the end of this year during which time we will continue to apply all the rules and regulations of the EU. I think it is very interesting that one of the consequences of leaving the EU is that we now have to regulate all our Foreign Relations ourselves and we cannot rely on the EU for that.”

He went on to say, “It could be a deal similar to a free trade agreement between the EU and Canada. We will not seek a specially-constructed free trade agreement with the EU for the UK”. Noting that 90 per cent of the trade between UK and Turkey took place through the customs union, Mr. Chilcott explained that under EU rules Turkey could make free trade agreements with third parties, but these should reflect the EU’s agreement with those third parties.

The Ambassador pointed out that in this sense there should be a trade deal between the UK and the EU first, to be finalized before the end of the year. He said the bilateral trade volume was already over US$ 20 billion also drawing attention to the rapid rise in trade between Turkey and the UK in the last 10 years.

Chilcott emphasized that Turkey and Turkey had common benefits in following areas:

“We share the NATO alliance. We are both in the G20. Both countries are very big economies with a lot of potential together. Not to forget, both countries are founding members of the Council of Europe. These are good enough reasons to spend more energy to improve relations with Turkey after UK leaves the EU.”