According to the Iranian news agency Mehr, Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that the two countries had agreed to increase the volume of bilateral trade to 30 billion dollars within the next three years.
The value of trade between Iran and Turkey surpassed 16 billion dollars in 2011.
earlier in March, Swift, the Belgian-based financial clearing house, bowing to US and European Union pressure, announced that it was cutting financial services to Iranian banks. The move was expected to severely curtail Iran’s ability to sell its oil abroad, but it appears that a variety of rogue states in Asia and South America are eager to deal with the Iranians, despite, or perhaps because of, its nuclear ambitions.
At a joint press conference with Erdogan, Rahimi said that since Erdogan’s visit to Tehran some two years ago, commercial ties between the two countries have increased by 50 percent.
“Today we became determined to boost this rise to 100 percent and achieve the 30 billion dollar target as soon as possible,” Rahimi stated.
The Turkish prime minister also said the value of bilateral trade surpassed 16 billion dollars by the end of 2011 and “our purpose is to increase this figure to 30 billion dollars by 2015.”