TURKEY tr-diplomacy

Turkey to join Arab Parliament as observer

DAMASCUS - Anatolia News Agency | 8/9/2010 12:00:00 AM |

Turkey will join the Arab Parliament as an observer, Turkish Parliamentary Foreign Relations Committee Chairperson Murat Mercan has said.

Turkey will join the Arab Parliament as an observer, Turkish Parliamentary Foreign Relations Committee Chairperson Murat Mercan has said after the Turkish-Arab Parliamentarian Dialogue meeting in Syria.

Mercan said the second meeting of the Turkish-Arab Parliamentarian Dialogue would take place in Kuwait, and the meeting will focus on issues such as the Cyprus problem and ridding the Middle East of nuclear weapons.

Mercan added that Turkey recently became a member of the Arab League as an observer. “We have made a decision that Turkey is [also] joining the Arab Parliament as an observer,” he said.

The 22 countries in the Arab League each have four representatives in the Arab Parliament.

Lawmakers from the Turkish Parliament and their Arab counterparts gathered Saturday at a meeting that aimed to boost dialogue between Turkey and the Arab Parliament.

At the Arab League Summit of 2001 in Amman, the Arab states agreed to create an Arab Parliament and agreed on a resolution giving the secretary-general of the Arab League the power to start and create the parliament.

In 2004, at the regular Arab League Summit in Algiers, Arab League members agreed to send representatives to temporary parliament sessions, which took place at the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo, Egypt. Each member state will send four members until the parliament is reassigned permanently to its office currently under construction in Damascus.