Tehran, Iran, May 21
By Kamyar Eghbalnejad - Trend:
The head of Iran-Turkey Studies Center and Secretary-General of the two countries’ commercial council, Jalal Ebrahimi, said Tehran and Ankara plan to ditch US dollar and use national currencies in their bilateral trade.
Iran and Turkey will use rial and lira for business transactions and the two countries plan to ditch the US dollar, Ebrahimi told the Trend news agency on May 21.
He added that the two sides might replace the American currency with the euro if it becomes necessary.
The first foreign exchange swap in the Iranian rial and Turkish lira took place in mid-April after months of anticipation, which followed an agreement signed last year to use local currencies in trade.
Elsewhere in the interview, the Iranian official said there are some items that need to be added to the two countries’ lists of tariffs.
“The two countries are cooperating with each other and there is no obstacle on the path of their enhanced economic cooperation,” Ebrahimi said.
Iran is under unilateral US sanctions, which have complicated transactions in dollars because they have to be processed through the American financial system.
The central banks of Turkey and Iran have allocated a credit of 5 billion lira ($1.4 billion) and its equivalent in rial to their respective agent banks to be used as letters of credit with a repayment period of one year for both countries' traders, according to Iranian media.
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