Fourth Meeting of the Ankara Forum Was Held in Tel Aviv.

Fourth meeting of the Ankara Forum for Economic Cooperation between Palestine, Israel and Turkey was held on January 15, 2007 in Tel Aviv. The Forum members expressed their happiness to convene again, first time since September 2005. It was noted that Forum's meeting after a long period of intermission due to adverse political and military developments has to be considered as a manifestation of the strong will of the business communities towards a peaceful settlement. The participants stressed the importance of private sector dialogue in the context of limited and ineffective communication channels between Israel and Palestine. Members expressed the importance of the Project on the Revitalization of the Palestinian Industrial Free Zone that can serve as an effective third party involvement device to facilitate the contribution of the Turkish private sector to the peace process. Finally, members identified the need for institutionalizing the Ankara Forum as well as the need to focus on a number of other concrete projects such as those regarding SME development.