Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said Turkey is close to finalizing a trade agreement with the UK, with only technical issues remaining to be resolved, the SeeNews website reported.
Some 95 percent of the agreement covers industrial products, while the remainder is agriculture and services, the Financial Times quoted Çavuşoğlu as saying in London on Friday.
Çavuşoğlu added that Turkey plans to increase trade volume with the UK to at least $20 billion (17.8 billion euros) per year after the post-Brexit transition period. Total UK-Turkish trade reached 18.8 billion British pounds ($23.7 billion/21 billion euros) in 2019.
Any trade deal between Turkey and the UK will be implemented only after London reaches an agreement with the EU. Otherwise, Turkey could risk breaching EU rules if it decides to implement the trade deal with the UK.
Çavuşoğlu also told the Financial Times that Turkey aims to negotiate a separate immigration deal that would protect the status of Turks who do not have full British residency when the UK implements new migration rules.
