President Hassan Rouhani made the remarks at Tehran Mehrabad airport on Wednesday before departing for Turkey at the official invitation of his counterpart President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to take part in the 5th Supreme Council of the two countries.
With regard to the schedule of his trip, Rouhani said that in addition to the meeting between the two countries's cabinets, his accompanying ministers will hold separate talks with their Turkish counterparts as well.
The Iranian president described Turkey as an important and influential friend in the region with historical, cultural and religious commonalities with Iran.
Rouhani further praised Turkish government and President Erdoğan for strong opposition towards anti-Iran US sanctions over the past months, saying “the neighbors, and in particular Turkey, have told the United States that the era of dictating policies has come to an end.”
“Turkey is one of the countries that can connect us to Eastern and Western countries, therefore our relations with it are very important to us,” he added.
The president further noted that the United States cannot impose its will on the great nations of the region from thousands of kilometers away.
According to the official website of Iranian Presidency, president Rouhani continued “in this visit, bilateral, regional, global and international issues will be discussed. The majority of negotiations will be regarding economic cooperation between the two countries, banking and commercial relations, energy, oil and gas.”
President referred to the meeting of businesspersons of the two countries adding “presidents of the two countries will be present in this meeting, and it will be a good ground for development of relations”.
Rouhani added “economic cooperation between the two countries is currently around $10 billion, which is not enough and we have stressed in the past 2, 3 years that the cooperation should be increased to $30.”
“Removing obstacles in bilateral relations, customs, industries and other fields will also be negotiated and resolved,” he added.
He also said “South-to-North, North-to-West, and East-to-West routes are important and one of the countries that can establish a good connection between eastern and western countries, especially through railroad, is Turkey.”
He continued “regarding railroads, a new line is being negotiated and should be implemented; right now, the train goes from Iran to Lake Van, from where the carriages are transported by ships”.
Stating that one of the very important issues in Iran-Turkey relations with Russia is the tripartite negotiations regarding Syria, he added “these negotiations continue and the three countries had a meeting in Geneva recently and we are at a very critical stage.”
Rouhani also said that two important goals were followed in Syria, adding “one of them was the security of Syria and return of the people of the country to their homeland, and the other was the future of Syria, which should be at the hands of the Syrians.”
Rouhani went on to point out that during the visit the issue of regional security and the fight against terrorism, which are two important issues for both countries and recently good actions have been done on the shared borders in that regard, as well as the issue of cooperation on migrants will be discussed.