“Van, the 7,000-year-old cradle of civilization in eastern Anatolia, will become a major industrial and commerce center if plans for a free trade zone on the border between Iran and Turkey come to fruition,” the Hurriyet daily reads.

The newspaper recalls ancient Armenian city in this frames as a result of recent Iranian-Turkish initiative on joint project to build an international free industry and commerce zone.

“Using Iran’s cheap energy and Turkey’s know-how and technology, the idea is to produce goods in eastern Turkey on the Iranian border and transfer them to Central Asia and Iraq via a railway along the route of the historical Silk Road, which extends all the way to Pakistan,” the source says.

The Hurriyet quotes Van Governor Munir Karaloglu: “Turkey has free trade zones and industrial zones, but no international free industry and commerce zone yet. Industrialists from both countries will use a common area and energy from a foreign country. The customs taxes will be abolished, although there is no legal groundwork laid out yet. The biggest handicap for our manufacturers is the cost of energy. If we succeed in serving our producers with cheap Iranian energy, a significant economic boom will occur in the region.”