Turkish Minister to visit Syria for settling border issues

Turkish Minister of State, Korshad Tozman, is to visit Syria late February to discuss setting up a free trade zone and opening four border crossing points for trade and joint industrial and agrarian projects after the clearing the two countries' borders from mines.

The Turkish Ikhlas news Agency described the visit as an outcome of the recent visit to Turkey by President Bashar al-Assad during which two agreements on avoiding double taxation and protection of investments were signed to increase size of trade exchange to 2 billion from 800 million dollars.