Turkey and Iran have agreed to use national currencies in trade in a bid to ease the parity risks over their bilateral trade, the leaders of both countries announced on October 4.

At a joint news conference in Tehran with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the goal of raising Turkish-Iranian trade volume to $30 billion from $10 billion remains on the agenda, adding that some decisions were made to reach this target.

“Iran and Turkey agreed on the use of national currency in bilateral trade to ease foreign currency risks on the road to increasing trade volume,” he said, according to Hurriyet Daily News.

He also added that the officials from both countries’ central banks would next meet to finalize the steps to be taken in this key field, while also adding Turkey was interested in opening Turkish banks in Iran.

Rouhani said three customs gates between Turkey and Iran would work for 24 hours.

“Two customs gates will work 24 hours a day by tomorrow. As soon as technical and construction issues are resolved in the third gate, it will also start to work 24 hours a day,” he noted.

Iran and Russia are planning to create a joint account to settle their mutual payments in their own legal tenders, Iran’s ambassador to Russia says.

“Both sides plan to create a mutual bank or a mutual account to make payments in [Iranian] rials and [Russian] roubles possible,” RIA Novosti quoted Mehdi Sanaei as saying.

Sanaei’s remarks come two days after Gholam-Ali Kamyab, the vice governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), said Iran plans to sign “bilateral monetary treaties” with certain countries.

Kamyab also said Iran is not using the dollar “in its transactions with different countries”, adding, “Iran is using other currencies like China’s yuan, Turkey’s lira, Russia’s rouble and South Korea’s won in its trade transactions with foreign countries.”

Sanaei said relations between Iran and Russia “are actively developing” and that last year was “a very fruitful year” for both Tehran and Moscow.

Last November, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his country would quit the “dollar dictatorship” in order to switch to more widespread use of the rouble and the yuan in international transactions.

The US and the European Union (EU) have imposed an array of embargoes on Russian individuals and businesses over the crisis in Ukraine. They accuse Moscow of supporting anti-Kiev protesters in eastern and southern Ukraine. Russia denies the allegation.

The US and its European allies have also imposed sanctions against Iran over Tehran’s civilian nuclear activities.

Last September, Iran and Russia agreed to use their national currencies in bilateral trade.

Turkey, Iran to use national currencies in bilateral trade

Iran, Russia mull joint account to trade in own currencies