Sanctions present opportunity to boost Iran-Turkey ties

Iran’s Ambassador to Turkey Alireza Bigdeli has described the West’s sanctions against Iran as an opportunity to enhance the Islamic Republic’s ties with Turkey.

At a Friday meeting with members of the Turkish society of entrepreneurs in the capital city of Ankara, Bigdeli pointed to the significant share of the private sector in Iran-Turkey trade ties and noted that the sanctions have opened up more opportunities for small and medium businesses in Iran.

Now that big international companies have been deprived of participation in Iran’s market due to political considerations, the Turkish small and medium businesses can seize the chance to strengthen their presence in the Islamic Republic, the Iranian diplomat pointed out.

At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.

The illegal US-engineered sanctions have been imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program. Iran has rejected the allegation.

Bigdeli underscored the Iranian embassy’s determination to turn Turkey into Iran’s number-one trade partner and expressed optimism that by further cooperation between the two countries’ trade and industry officials, the negative impact of sanctions and bureaucracy, as the main obstacles in the way of bilateral ties, will be removed.

He also pointed to the cultural and religious commonalities of the two neighboring countries and Iran’s extensive mineral, industrial, energy and human resources and called on the Turkish entrepreneurs to utilize the existing potentials.

A representative of the Turkish businessmen, for his part, hailed the growing ties between the two countries and called on Iran to use Turkish language, instead of English, to further introduce economic opportunities in the Islamic Republic to the Turkish audience.