TEHRAN- “Iran is capable of supplying energy to Turkey in the long run,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced in his visit to Turkey on Thursday evening adding that his country will convert U.S.-led sanctions into an opportunity for reinforcing economic ties with Turkey, IRNA reported.

Rouhani, leading a high ranking delegation, made a trip to Turkey to attend the 5th Session of the High Council of Iran-Turkey Strategic Relations.

Making the remarks in a meeting with Iranian and Turkish businessmen, Rouhani underlined that the two sides should move from preferential towards free trade ties. 

“Iran is ready to set the proper ground for the participation of Turkish investors in Iran’s energy market,” he added.

The second step to fortify Iran-Turkey economic ties is providing the required facilities to that end, Rouhani expressed, “we can hit 30-billion-dollar trade volume in case of having proper financial relation and to reach that target, affiliated institutions, banks, funds besides shipping, insurance, and transportation companies should play a significant role.”

The Iranian president, elsewhere, underscored the two countries’ support for joint investments saying that “today, we have made a decision about establishing industrial parks to benefit from each other’s facilities for industrial improvement and there are, for sure, more economic and trade sectors to collaborate on.”

“Iran will back Turkey’s participation and investments in various Iranian economic sectors such as refineries, petrochemicals, as well as upstream and downstream energy sectors and is ready to provide Turks with required land, materials, and facilities,” Rouhani said.

Naming free and preferential trade agreements as the main means and goals of expanding Iran-Turkey economic ties, Rouhani said that “we have reached such targets in trading some specific goods but we must develop such ties to reach free trade in the region and the issue requires taking advantage of free zones and their full capacities.”

Tehran, Ankara to form joint electricity market committee

Iran and Turkey are to create joint electricity market committee to cooperate on generation and transferring electricity besides renewable energy plants and regional electricity market, Iranian Minister of Energy Reza Ardakanian announced on the sidelines of a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Fatih Donmez in Ankara on Thursday.

“Turkey plans to increase electricity trade with Iran via establishing a 450-megawats-line,” Ardakanian said.

“Turkey is aimed at increasing volume of electricity exchange up to 1,050 megawatts by 2020 from the current 600 megawatts,” he added.

The Iranian minister added that the two sides will sign a MoU in the near future in this regard.

’Banking ties to be improved’

“Considering the held talks between President Rouhani and his Turkish counterpart, mutual banking ties between the two countries will experience a big change,” Governor of Central Bank of Iran Abdolnaser Hemmati said after the 5th Session of the High Council of Iran-Turkey Strategic Relations on Thursday.

“Fortunately, the Turkish president is optimistic about banking ties with Iran and present barriers on bilateral banking relation are planned to be removed as soon as possible,” Hemmati said.

HJ/MA