The presidents of Iran and Turkey on Friday called for further promotion of business ties between the two neighboring states in a bid to counter the effect of unilateral sanctions imposed by Washington on Tehran and Ankara.
“Iran and Turkey must further boost their economic relations to counter US sanctions,” President Hassan Rouhani said in a Friday meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is in Tehran to attend a trilateral summit on Syria with his Iranian and Russian counterparts.
Rouhani called for enhancement of banking and energy relations between the two sides, stressing that plans need to be made for resolving problems that hamper further economic cooperation.
He also underlined the necessity of using national currencies in bilateral business transactions, and called for a revision to Iran-Turkey preferential trade agreement.
Erdogan, for his part, condemned the US government’s “unacceptable and unstable” stances toward other countries, and echoed Rouhani’s call for boosting bilateral trade to defy the US sanctions.
“Iran and Turkey, under the current circumstances, must plan to develop their trade and economic relations,” he said, calling for further expansion of business ties between the two states.
“We must put more effort into developing, strengthening, and reinforcing our relations in all fields,” Erdogan noted, stressing the need for increased banking cooperation and use of national currencies in bilateral trade.
The Turkish president said earlier this week he has plans to ditch the US dollar in trade with Iran and instead use local currencies.
Back in April, Iran and Turkey opened their first letter of credit for business transactions in their national currencies as part of their efforts to ditch the greenback and the euro in bilateral trade.
Both Iran and Turkey are under unilateral US sanctions, which have complicated transactions in dollars because they have to be processed through the American financial system.
US President Donald Trump withdrew his country from the Iran nuclear deal in May, and re-imposed the first batch of anti-Iran sanctions later in August.
He has vowed to impose “the highest level” of economic bans on the Islamic Republic.
Last month, Trump also announced his decision to double steel and aluminum tariffs on Turkey, saying relations between Washington and Ankara are “not good.”
Source: PRESS TV
