Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 17
By Umid Niayesh, Temkin Jafarov - Trend:
Iran supports Turkey's positive approach towards improving and boosting relations with its neighbours, Iranian ambassador to Azerbaijan, Mohsen Pak Ayeen told Trend on Jan. 17.
He also underlined that Iran and Turkey have close viewpoints on Syrian crisis, including necessity of maintaining the unity and territorial integrity of the country, stopping the civil war and the establishment of a ceasefire, returning of refugees to their home, humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people, finding a peaceful solution and avoiding any military intervention.
Pak Ayeen went on to say that, Iran is ready to improve Ankara-Damascus relation with all of its capacity.
During the conflict in Syria which began in March 2011, more than 115,000 people were killed in the country and over 4.2 million became refugees in Syrian territory and two million fled to neighboring countries.
Pak Ayeen further said that Turkey is Iran's main economic partner in the region and the two countries are currently enjoying a positive trend in relations. This is while on Dec. 25 Turkish ambassador to Iran Umit Yardim said that Ankara does not hold the negotiations with Damascus.
Iran-Turkey trade turnover has reached some $10.357 billion during first 8 months of the 2013. The two countries plan to increase the level of their bilateral trade volume to $30 billion by 2015.
"Developing relations with neighbours, in particular with Muslim brothers is important to Iran," Pak Ayeen said, adding that Iran and Turkey relations are peaceful and do not suffer from any tensions.
Speaking about the Geneva nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 group, the ambassador said that the Geneva nuclear deal is a win for Iran's diplomacy and those who support the dialogue for resolving the differences. At the same time, he added that the nuclear deal was a failure for militarists.
"Iran always has stressed its peaceful nuclear rights," Pak Ayeen said, adding that the world powers also have accepted Iran's arguments on the issue and have found realistic views for resolving the disputes.
It should be noted that Iran and the P5+1 reached a nuclear agreement on Nov. 24. Iran has agreed to curb some of its nuclear activities for six months in return for sanctions relief. Both Iran and the P5+1 group have agreed to implement the agreement starting from Jan. 20.
Under the agreement, six major powers agreed to give Iran access to $4.2 billion in revenues blocked overseas if it carries out the deal, which offers sanctions relief in exchange for steps to curb the Iranian nuclear program.
The U.S. and its Western allies suspect Iran of developing a nuclear weapon - something that Iran denies. The Islamic Republic has on numerous occasions stated that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons, using nuclear energy for medical researches instead.
Edited by: Saeed Isayev