TEHRAN – Iran and Serbia signed an MOU on goods and passenger transportation here on Sunday.

The MOU was signed between Mohammad Bokharai, Iranian deputy minister of roads and transport and Miodrag Jocic, Serbian deputy minister of transport and communications.
This MOU specifies the methods of transportation for passenger and goods in both countries and will allow both countries transportation fleets to enter and pass the other sides territory without paying any taxes or tariffs, border transit and depot bureau official Amir Mohammadi explained.
“Before the conflicts started in the Balkan region, most of Iran’s transit routes to Western Europe passed through former Yugoslavia; these transits would sometimes reach over 5000 trips per year,” he added.
Mohammadi went on to note that due to the importance of this route, MOUs were signed with the countries that were on it – countries such as Croatia and Slovenia. However, the Serbian government (former Yugoslavia) in an official statement announced that all international contracts signed by the former government were still valid, but with the recent changes made in the Serbian government the need to resign an MOU was felt more than before.
“For this, two rounds of negotiations were held between the two sides and the MOU was finalized by an Iranian expert sent to Belgrade and the Serbian deputy minister of transport and communications was officially invited to Iran to sign this MOU,” he said.