Tuzmen Received By Iranian Vice President Aref

TEHRAN - State Minister Kursad Tuzmen was received by Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref on Wednesday.
Aref said that they would be pleased if Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid a visit to Iran.
Stating that they were very pleased with significant development of relations between Turkey and Iran, Aref said that everything was ready to increase trade volume between the two countries to 5 billion U.S. dollars and state ministers of both countries should exert efforts for it.
Aref said that they wanted to further develop their relations with Turkey and stated that the two countries would overcome unimportant problems by such mutual visits.
Noting that the cooperation in tourism sector between Turkey and Iran was important and developments in that sector were positive, Aref said that the two countries reached principle agreement on border trade centers.
Tuzmen demanded some part of natural gas and oil which Turkey bought from Iran to be paid by goods and asked Iran to reduce customs tariffs.
(EÖ-AÖ) 01.10.2003