At a joint news conference following talks with Foreign Minister of Iran Mohammad Javad Zarif in Moscow, Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Lavrov noted “a 17% increase in trade over the first six months of the year,” website of the Foreign Ministry reported.
According to Lavrov, “The Permanent Russian-Iranian Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation plays an important role in promoting these positive dynamics. Its regular plenary meeting was held in Iran this summer, co-chaired by the ministers of energy. Today the energy ministers of Russia and Iran are meeting in Moscow. We are confident that they will have a more detailed discussion of economic goals. This implies implementing prospective Russian-Iranian initiatives, in energy primarily, including nuclear energy, and in transport, industrial cooperation, finance and banking.”
“Both Russia and Iran are affected by illegal unilateral restrictions imposed by the US that aim to block Iran’s foreign economic ties,” the Minister said. “We have agreed to continue our joint efforts to expand protective measures on trade and economic projects with Iran to make them independent of USD transaction channels. Using the dollar for international payments has largely undermined the trust of our countries as well as most other states that understand the abnormality of Washington’s actions in order to impose its unilateral decisions, including the revising of WTO regulations in the context of promoting measures for clearly unfair competition in order to extort unilateral preferences.”