Turkish President Abdullah Gul stressed the need for increasing the trade exchanges between Tehran and Ankara to the highest level, saying that the relations between the two Muslim neighboring states should grow as tight as the relations between France and Germany are.

"Iran and Turkey enjoy great potentials for mutual cooperation," Gul said in a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani in Ankara on Monday.

"We should boost the level of our trade relations like the ties between the French and Germany governments," he said, stressing that the two states should increase the level of their trade balance to $30bln.

Gul described war on terrorism as another area of discussions with the Iranian president, and said, "We believe that increasing talks between the two countries to broaden relations and (joint) campaign against terrorism will help to the establishment of stability in the region."

He also expressed pleasure in the positive trend of the nuclear talks between Iran and the world powers, and reiterated Turkey's support for Iran's nuclear rights.

"We don’t allow any country to be deprived of its right of using the peaceful nuclear energy as we are all entitled to the right to make use of this energy for peaceful purposes."

Iran and Turkey have in recent years increased their cooperation in all the various fields of economy, security, trade, education, energy and culture.

The two sides have exchanged several politico-economic delegations during the last few months.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a high-ranking political-economic delegation visited Tehran in January.

During the visit, Erdogan underlined his country’s enthusiasm for starting a new chapter in the relations with Tehran, and said Turkey is in dire need of Iran’s energy resources.

“We import oil and natural gas from Iran and those are strategic products that Turkey imports from Iran and we can receive them more (than before),” Erdogan told reporters in Tehran after inking several documents on cooperation with Iran.

“Given the fact that Turkey’s industries are making progress on a daily basis and rapidly, we direly need energy products, specially Iran’s natural gas, and we should take joint win-win steps,” he added.

Erdogan also called for the further expansion of bilateral economic ties with Tehran, and said there is a political resolve in Iran and Turkey to increase the level of their trade exchanges to $30bln in 2015.
 

News ID 186728