Ukraine and Turkey have signed a free trade deal after Turkish president Erdogan visited Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Thursday (3 February).
The Turkish leader struck a raft of deals on free trade and defence after talks with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
These include joint production in Ukraine of Turkish military drones which have been deployed against Russian-backed separatists, reports the FT.
Road to Kyiv
According to the WSJ, Erdogan is the latest leader to travel to Kyiv to pledge support. He has also offered to help broker a solution to the crisis between Russia and the Ukraine.
Trade turnover between Turkey and Ukraine totalled $7bn in 2021, with Ukrainian exports worth $4.1bn.
Negotiations on a free trade deal have dragged on for about a decade due to disagreements over grains and metals, which accounted for 70% of Ukrainian sales to Turkey, reports Reuters.
Food security
As reported this week in the IOE&IT’s Daily Update, UK trade ambitions with Ukraine could be affected by the current unease, with the possibility that food imports could be hit.
Prime minister Boris Johnson visited the Ukraine earlier this week and the UK has pledged £88m to support the Ukrainian economy.
EU sanctions urged
Politico reports that Ukraine has urged the EU to finalise a sanctions package against Russia and make it public so that Russian president Vladimir Putin understands the West’s seriousness about how it would respond to a military attack on Ukraine.
However, speaking to reporters on his return from Ukraine, Reuters reports president Erdogan saying that US president Joe Biden and other Western nations had not helped to solve the crisis between Russia and Ukraine, and there were no European leaders fit to resolve it.
He was also quoted as saying he “greatly values” a planned visit by Vladimir Putin to Turkey.