Iran, Turkey sign 8 MoUs in various sectors

Iran and Turkey signed eight memorandums of understanding (MoUs) in Tehran on Tuesday to expand cooperation in economy, culture and politics.

The documents signed foresee cooperation in diplomatic, health, sanitary, environmental areas as well as private sector investment in minor industries, exchange of auto electronic information, cooperation on women's issues and railway transportation.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, present in the signing ceremony, deemed the agreements as significant steps in boosting mutual ties.

Both countries share a joint target of increasing bilateral trade to 30 billion U.S. dollars by 2015 from its 13.7 billion dollars level for 2014, Rouhani said, adding that the subject was discussed in the second High Level Cooperation Council meeting Tuesday.

The High Level Cooperation Council is an intergovernmental conference set up in January 2014, with its first meeting held in June last year during Rouhani's visit to Ankara.

Accordingly, committees from both countries will hold regular meetings before the coming High Level Cooperation Council meeting in Istanbul, Rouhani said.

Rouhani welcomed Turkey's supportive position of finding diplomatic solutions to Iran's nuclear issue, saying that a final agreement between his country and world powers will benefit economic growth and trade ties between Tehran and Ankara as investors will find many investment opportunities.

As for Erdogan, he pointed to the wide gap in trade value between the two countries, saying that Iran's current exports to Turkey amount to 10 billion U.S. dollars while the value of Turkey's exports to Iran stands at four billion dollars.

The difference in bilateral trade transactions is due to Iranian advantage which caused problems, he said, hoping that resolving these problems will be on the talks agenda between the two countries.

Erdogan also expressed his dissatisfaction with the price of imported natural gas from Iran, saying that "we earnestly ask Iran to reduce its gas price so that we can import larger volumes of Iranian gas."

Iran, which boasts the world's largest natural gas reserves, is Turkey's second biggest gas supplier after Russia. Turkey uses a significant portion of its imported Iranian natural gas to generate electricity.

Turkey's main exports to Iran include machinery, motor vehicles, iron and steel products, as well as tobacco products. Crude oil is Iran's other major export to Turkey.

Erdogan urged Tehran and Ankara Tuesday to use their national currencies in bilateral trade transactions in order to reduce the dominant influence of foreign currencies on their economy and financial sectors.

In January, visiting Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci said Iran and Turkey agreed to use their national currencies in their trade transactions.

"Upon implementation of the agreement, we plan to increase the value of our bilateral trade transactions from the current 16 billion dollars to 30 billion dollars," said Zeybekc. Endit