Iranian Official Underlines Expansion of Economic Ties with Turkey

TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior Iranian official stressed Tehran and Ankara's common political positions on different regional and international issues, and viewed these commonalities as a major impetus for the further development of the two countries' economic cooperation.
"These (common) political approaches pave the ground for the development of economic ties," Governor-General of Iran's Northwestern province of East Azarbaijan Ahmad Alirezabeigi said in a meeting with a number of his Turkish counterparts on Saturday.

He said that the two countries' officials are determined to reinvigorate the bilateral relations and mutual cooperation, and added that Iran and Turkey are seeking to increase the volume of their trade exchanges to $30bln which, he viewed, as a logical goal regarding their good ties.

Iran and Turkey have in recent years increased their cooperation in all the various fields of economy, security, trade, education, energy and culture.

The two sides have exchanged several politico-economic delegations during the last few months.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul in a meeting with Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani earlier in February underlined the need for the removal of obstacles to the further expansion of bilateral economic ties with Iran in a bid to boost trade cooperation between the two countries.

"The level of economic and trade cooperation between the two countries is not appropriate for the age-old ties of the two nations and we should remove the obstacles to the development of mutual cooperation between Iran and Turkey," Gul said at the time.