Iran seeks $20bn of trade with Turkey

Iran’s Ambassador to Turkey has demanded that the bilateral economic transactions between Tehran and Ankara be increased to USD 20 billion in 2012. Bahman Hosseinpour was speaking at a Friday meeting with Turkish Minister of Development and head of the Iran-Turkey joint economic taskforce Cevdet Yilmaz in the Turkish capital of Ankara. During the meeting, the two sides held further discussions over the recent Tehran-Ankara agreements signed during the visit by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Iran in late March. During the two-day visit, Erdogan headed a high-ranking politico-economic delegation of Turkish officials. Yilmaz, for his part, underscored the need for using the existing potentials for the further enhancement of the Iran-Turkey economic relations and implementing the mutual agreements. The value of the Iran-Turkey trade exceeded USD 16 billion in 2011. The two countries plan to increase the level of their bilateral trade volume to USD 30 billion by 2015.