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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Peres to address Turkish parliament |
| 2007-11-11 |
| President Shimon Peres will leave on Sunday for a three-day state visit to Turkey amid growing efforts to bridge the gaps between Israel and the Palestinian Authority ahead of the Annapolis peace summit scheduled for later this month. Peres will be the guest of Turkish President Abdullah Gul and will become the first Israeli leader to speak in a Muslim parliament after he addresses the Grand National Assembly of Turkey together with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday. Earlier in the day, both leaders will meet with Gul and sign a memorandum on the establishment of a new industrial zone in the West Bank. The meeting is part of the Ankara Forum that was set up in 2005 to bring together Turkish, Israel and Palestinian industrialists. In 2006, Turkey signed an agreement to take control of the Erez Industrial Zone in Gaza but with the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June, Ankara has decided to try and establish a joint Israeli-Palestinian industrial zone in the West Bank. Abbas' government is scheduled to announce in Turkey how much land it plans to allocate for the project, which is expected to create jobs for thousands of Palestinians. Turkish officials said that talks with Peres would focus on the possibility of renewing Israeli negotiations with Syria, the Iranian threat as well as the growing rift between Turkey and the US over an initiative in the Congress to formally recognize the Armenian genocide of 1915. |
| Posted by:Fred |