ANKARA, 29 December, 2020, (TON): Turkey and the UK are set to sign a landmark free trade agreement on Tuesday after a new round of technical talks, the first since Prime Minister Boris Johnson secured a new trade agreement with the European Union.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced the deal after a Cabinet meeting saying, "A new era begins starting in 2021, one in which both Turkey and the UK will win."

The deal replicates the existing trading terms between Ankara and London.

Erdogan said it will be Turkey’s "most important trade deal" since its 1995 Customs Union with the EU.

The two nations will sign a deal that replicates the existing trading terms between Ankara and London, but British trade minister Liz Truss said that she was hopeful a bespoke deal between the countries could be struck soon.

“The deal we expect to sign this week locks in tariff free trading arrangements and will help support our trading relationship. It will provide certainty for thousands of jobs across the UK in the manufacturing, automotive and steel industries,” Truss said in a statement.

“We now look forward to working with Turkey towards an ambitious tailor-made UK-Turkey trade agreement in the near future.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who visited London for a series of talks earlier this month, told The Financial Times (FT) that negotiations between the two countries on a trade deal covering manufactured goods, agriculture, and services are “going very well" and that they were "close to finalizing it.”

The trading relationship was worth 18.6 billion pounds ($25.25bn) in 2019, and Britain said it was the fifth biggest trade deal the trade ministry had negotiated after agreements with Japan, Canada, Switzerland and Norway.

Britain has now signed trade agreements with 62 countries ahead of the end of the Brexit transition period on January 1, when it leaves the EU’s trading arrangements. It clinched its narrow trade deal with the EU, its biggest trading partner, last week.

In 2018, Turkey exported £10.6 billion of goods and services to the UK, its second most important export market after Germany. Turkey and the UK, free trade agreement will remove tariffs and quotas on industrial goods. A UK-Turkey trade deal is important for both countries commercially and politically. Bilateral relations have strengthened in recent years just as both countries’ relationships with the EU have deteriorated.