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TheLevant Quartet was a formal economic and cultural partnership ofTurkey,Lebanon,Syria, andJordan formed in December 2010.[1] The Quartet had the stated aim of eventually giving rise to an economic, cultural, monetary and political union similar to theEuropean Union in theMiddle East.[1][2] Projected member states included the four founders as well asBahrain,Iran,Iraq,Kuwait,Oman,Qatar, theUnited Arab Emirates andYemen.[1]
The Quartet agreement was formed following a decade of increasing trade and diplomatic traffic between Turkey and the other member states.[2] TheLevant Business Forum was set up, with a secretariat atBeirut, with the intention of enabling free circulation of goods and people among the Quartet states.[3] Also planned was a customs union calledShamgen, a pun onSham and the EU'sSchengen Agreement,[4] in which Iran and Iraq would participate by issuing joint visas with Turkey and Syria.[5] The project was effectively put to a stop when Turkey imposed economic sanctions on Syria in the wake of theuprising in Syria, less than a year after it was first announced.[6] The participants in the original Levant Quartet agreement did announce their intention to resume negotiations "as soon as the situation normalizes".[3]
World Bank analysts saw "sizable" benefits for the Levantine countries from the expected increase in trade that the Levant Quartet would have generated, had theSyrian Civil War not halted it.[7]Soner Cagaptay commented that the plan fit within theAK Party's vision of Turkey as "theBrazil of the Middle East, a rising economic power with a burning desire to shape regional events".[2]