Tabnak – Iran’s capital city Tehran on Friday hosted a summit among the presidents of Iran, Russia and Turkey to discuss the latest developments in Syria. A rather new, interesting point regarding the summit, however, was the expansion of the Astana Framework’s agenda to include other issues, most importantly economic cooperation.
Governor of the Central Bank of Iran says Tehran, Moscow and Ankara have agreed on a number of economic measures like removing the US dollar from their mutual transactions as part of efforts to expand their trade relations amid Washington’s pressure.
The agreement was made on the sidelines of a key trilateral summit on Syria held in Tehran on Friday and attended by Iranian, Russian and Turkish presidents, Abdolreza Hemmati said.
“During the Friday summit, I along with Iranian oil minister held beneficial and constructive meetings with the economic officials of Russia and Turkey with the three presidents in attendance,” he noted.
According to Hemmati, the main topics discussed during the meetings included oil and gas prices, basic commodities sales, expansion of banking ties, conducting financial transactions by the countries’ national currencies instead of the US dollar and strengthening bilateral economic relations. Hemmati went on to say that he will follow up on the agreements in a meeting with his Russian counterpart in Moscow in the near future.
In this vein, during a meeting with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei later on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he had discussed with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani the expansion of relations in all fields, particularly in the economic and trade sectors.
He said the US is putting obstacles, including banking restrictions, in the way of the development of Tehran-Moscow relations, and added that Washington is making a strategic mistake by limiting financial transactions.
On the other hand, the presidents of Iran and Turkey on Friday called for further promotion of business ties between the two neighboring states in a bid to counter the effect of unilateral sanctions imposed by Washington on Tehran and Ankara.
“Iran and Turkey must further boost their economic relations to counter US sanctions,” President Hassan Rouhani said in a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on the sidelines of yesterday’s trilateral summit.
Rouhani called for enhancement of banking and energy relations between the two sides, stressing that plans need to be made for resolving problems that hamper further economic cooperation. He also underlined the necessity of using national currencies in bilateral business transactions, and called for a revision to Iran-Turkey preferential trade agreement.
Erdogan, for his part, condemned the US government’s “unacceptable and unstable” stances toward other countries, and echoed Rouhani’s call for boosting bilateral trade to defy the US sanctions.
Both Iran and Turkey are under unilateral US sanctions, which have complicated transactions in dollars because they have to be processed through the American financial system. Following a number of accusations by the Western governments, Russia also has been targeted by increasing sanctions from the United States. As a result, it seems that this aspect of being under American sanctions is actually pushing Tehran, Moscow and Ankara toward increasing their cooperation in different fields.
