Moscow Keen to Increase Cooperation with Tehran
News number: 9010172187 16:17 | 2012-01-23
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9010172187

TEHRAN (FNA)- A high-ranking Russian diplomat said despite western
pressures, Moscow is strongly willing to boost cooperation with Iran in
different economic fields.

Speaking to FNA on Monday, Russian Consul-General in Iran's Northern City of
Rasht Maxim Baranov called Iran a "close neighbor" of Russia, and stated,
"We are living in a single region and we are want Iran-Russia cooperation to
increase."

"The two countries enjoyed a good era of trade last year (2011) and the same
path will be pursued this year too," Baranov underscored.

He pointed to the Iran and Russia' good trade capacities, and noted, "These
capacities should be utilized in a complementary fashion and we should
provide practical ways for a better utilization of these capacities."

Tehran's Ambassador to Moscow Seyed Reza Sajjadi announced on Friday that
Iran and Russia have started using their domestic rial and rouble currencies
in bilateral trade instead of the US dollar.

"(Trade) is based on our national currencies," Sajjadi told a news
conference.

"We started this work long ago. Iranian businessmen are buying products in
Russia and are using the rouble as (payment) currency ... The US dollar has
no (economic) support base," he continued.

Sajjadi had also earlier this month told FNA that the proposal for replacing
the US dollar with ruble and rial was raised by Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev in a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in
Astana on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)
meeting.

"Since then, we have acted on this basis and a part of our interactions is
done in Ruble now," Sajjadi stated, adding that many Iranian traders were
using ruble for their trade deals already.

"There is a similar interest in the Russian side," the envoy stated, adding
that that Moscow is against unilateral sanctions on Iran outside the UN
Security Council, specially the recent sanctions against Iran's Central Bank
(CBI).