TEHRAN - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is currently paying a three-day state visit to Iran, said on Wednesday that they targeted to increase trade volume with Iran up to 5 billion USD (US dollars).
Holding a news conference at the Turkish Embassy in Tehran, Prime Minister Erdogan recalled that he had held talks with First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref and Iranian Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majles) Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel.
''During the meetings, we had the chance of discussing many political, economic, commercial and cultural issues. There was a significant increase in trade volume between Turkey and Iran in 2003. Our trade volume rose to 2.4 billion USD . We target to increase bilateral trade volume up to 5 billion USD,'' he said.
Noting that the issue of natural gas was high on agenda of his meetings with Iranian officials, Prime Minister Erdogan told reporters, ''talks have been initiated to transport Iranian natural gas to western countries via Turkey. Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Hilmi Guler and his Iranian counterpart will have discussion on this matter.''
Pointing out that recent developments in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cyprus were also taken up during the meetings, Prime Minister Erdogan said, ''both Turkey and Iran advocates that Iraq's territorial integrity should be preserved. According to our point of view, none of the ethnic groups should be allowed to become dominant over the others.''
''There is a call in the Cyprus Report of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. The Council of Europe, the European Union, the United States and many countries have begun to abide by that call. We requested the Iranian side to be sensitive over the issue. During the OIC meeting in Istanbul in June, Iran extended its support,'' he reminded.
Prime Minister Erdogan also added that several agreements would be signed between the two countries tomorrow.
(UK-ULG) 28.07.2004