Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has said Iran and Russia are determined to expand their relations, setting a goal to boost bilateral trade turnover to $15 billion per year.

"'Russia is an influential country on the international scene and is of high importance in the Caucasus region," Salehi said upon his arrival in Moscow on Monday, emphasizing the great importance for Iran to maintain relations with Russia.

"The political determination of the officials of Iran and Russia is based on the expansion of ties between the two countries, and this can be a good incentive for increasing bilateral cooperation," the Iranian foreign minister stated.

Salehi said that Russia is naturally one of the major and most important neighbors of Iran, and Iran's foreign policy priority is to expand the relations with its immediate neighbors, with Russia being the top priority in this field.

"Iran and Russia can be complementary of each other and as the Supreme Leader of the Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei said, Iran favors having a strong Russia by our side,' Salehi said.

The Iranian top diplomat pointed out that there is a lot of possibilities for expansion of Iran-Russia relations in the industrial, economic, scientific, and cultural fields. "But thus far we have not taken advantage of those possibilities as we should have," Salehi said.

He referred to the trade volume between Russia and Iran that has reached about $3 billion in the past year, saying "this volume does not match the potential possibilities of the two countries, which is very high and should be multiplied several fold."

"If we are determined enough the bilateral trade volume would increase to $15 billion annually, particularly since Russia needs agricultural products that Iran can provide it with. Russia, for its part, can provide wood, steel and industrial products that Iran needs," Salehi said.

Salehi expressed hope that the will of the two countries' leaders for boosting the Iran-Russia trade would lead to the expansion of the trade turnover.

Speaking about the financial problems in the way of expanding bilateral commercial cooperation, Salehi said the sides will try to solve those problems during the ongoing visit.

Furthermore, Salehi added that Tehran and Moscow can cooperate on the world stage in many fields, including bilateral interaction regarding the situation in Syria.

Salehi is on a visit to Moscow to attend a meeting of the Commission of Joint Iran-Russian Cooperation, which takes place on Monday and Tuesday.

On Tuesday Salehi is scheduled to attend a ceremony to sign documents as part of the 10th Iran-Russia Cooperation Commission meeting at Moscow's President Hotel.

The sides are scheduled to sign two cooperation agreements during this visit and proposals will be made and studied in industrial, commercial and other fields.

Meanwhile, several Russian media outlets reported that Salehi will meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to mull issues pertaining to Iran's nuclear program.

Salehi is the head of the 10th Iran-Russia Cooperation Commission, whose preliminary meeting in the presence of the two countries' experts began Monday morning at the Russian Economy Ministry.

The Iran-Russia Cooperation Commission was established in 2006, and since then, the two countries have signed agreements on the expansion of bilateral economic cooperation in various fields, such as nuclear energy, oil and gas, industrial, and tourism sectors.

Iran and Russia also closely cooperate in a number of other areas such as security, transport and the combat against drug trafficking.