Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 7
By Farhad Daneshvar - Trend:
"Iran, Russia and Baku started negotiations with a good beginning. We discussed various areas such as counter terrorism and counter narcotics .The talks will serve security in the region and will help transit," Iran's Foriegn Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said during a press conference in Baku.
A meeting of the Azerbaijani, Russian and Iranian foreign ministers Elmar Mammadyarov, Sergey Lavrov and Mohammad Javad Zarif took place in Baku Apr. 7.
The agenda included exchange of views on issues of mutual interest in regional cooperation, in particular issues of bilateral and trilateral projects' implementation, as well as the transport corridor 'North-South', regional security issues, including the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Zarif said that three countries agreed on costumes cooperation and tariffs, strengthening relations between three states. "we are already engaged in borders security".
He added that "we believe this cooperation is in the interest of people of Iran, Russia and Azerbaijan".
Iranian side will reportedly inaugurate a part of North-South railway corridor from Rasht to Qazvin on April 20.
Zarif also said that during trilateral meeting, the sides discussed energy cooperation. According to Zarif, Iran is trying to regain its oil market share, as its energy sector got heavily impacted by international sanctions.
Iran, which is trying to boost its oil exports to pres-sanctions level, saw its oil export decrease from 2.2 million barrels per day in 2011 to about one million barrels per day (mbpd) in 2015 due to sanctions. After the elimination of sanctions in mid-January 2016 due to the nuclear agreement, Iran boosted the exports to 1.5 mbpd.