Iran Calls For Boosting Parliamentary Collaboration With Turkey

Ankara, Feb 2, IRNA -- Iranian Ambassador to Turkey Bahman Hosseinpour called for promotion of mutual parliamentarian cooperation with Turkey. He made the remarks in his farewell meeting with Turkeyˈs Parliament Speaker Jemil Cicek. ˈParliamentarian relations between Iran and Turkey should be a symbol of their deep cultural, religious and historical friendship.ˈ Hosseinpour invited Turkeyˈs parliament speaker to pay a visit to Tehran in the near future. Turkey’s parliament speaker, for his part, called Turkey and Iran as two strategic regional countries and noted expansion of cooperation with Iran a priority in Ankara’s foreign policy. ˈIran and Turkey have great responsibilities toward regional issues and their cooperation can help the resolution of regional problems.ˈ Cicek welcomed Iranian envoyˈs invitation to visit Iran and expressed hope that he would meets with his Iranian counterpart Ali Larijani in Tehran in the near future. Hosseinpour earlier met Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. ˈNothing should affect high level of relations between Iran and Turkey,ˈ Davutoglu said. During the meeting on Friday, Iranian envoy to Turkey, for his part, pointed to the expansion of trade volume between Tehran and Ankara to $24 billion in 2012 from $5 billion dlrs in 2008, and added that Islamic Republic of Iran is committed to enhancement of ties with the neighboring and brotherly country of Turkey. Trade between Turkey and Iran has risen sharply in the past ten years. Turkey was Iranˈs fifth-largest oil customer in 2011, purchasing around 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day, 30 percent of its total imports and more than 7 percent of Iranˈs oil exports. In a meeting on Ankara last October, Iranian and Turkish officials explored avenues to further broaden mutual cooperation between the two countries in the transit and transportation sector. During the meeting in Ankara, Iranˈs ambassador to Turkey and Turkish Transportation and Communication Minister Binali Yildirim urged prolonged efforts to expand ties, especially in the field of transportation and communication, as a main contributor to the development of all-out ties between the two neighboring countries. The two officials also stressed the necessity for stronger relations and pursuing the planned rise of mutual trade to $30 billion by 2015./end