Baku, Azerbaijan, June 3
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Iran has allocated $1 billion to expand relations with the United Arab Emirates.
Yahya Al-e Es'haq, Tehran Chamber of Commerce Chairman, said a portion of the country's blocked assets, which was released after the Geneva deal, will be allocated to expand relations with the UAE, Iran's Mehr news agency reported on June 3.
A large trade delegation from the United Arab Emirates arrived in Iran on May 31.
The delegation was comprised of businessmen from oil and gas, banking, food, car, and investment sectors.
That was reportedly the largest trade delegation from the UAE which has traveled to Iran during the past eight years.
The UAE was the third biggest trading partner of Iran in the past Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 20, 2014.
Iran exported $353 million worth of goods to the UAE and imported $1.59 billion worth of goods from its southern neighbor, the Iranian Customs administration said.
Under a six-month interim deal between Iran and the P5+1 group (five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) which took effect on Jan. 20, the six major powers agreed to give Iran access to its $4.2 billion in revenues blocked overseas if the country fulfills the deal's terms which offer sanctions relief in exchange for steps on curbing the Iranian nuclear program.
Iran and P5+1 intend to continue their talks to reach a final agreement to fully resolve the decade-old dispute over the Islamic Republic's nuclear energy program. The two sides have held two rounds of political level talks as well as two rounds of expert level negotiations so far.