Iran, Russia Sign Energy, Banking MoUs
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian and Russian officials signed three memoranda of understanding (MoU) to broaden energy and banking relations.
The MoUs were signed on Wednesday during a meeting in Tehran attended by Iran’s Oil Minister Javad Owji and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.
The two officials serve as co-chairs of the Iran-Russia economic and trade cooperation commission, Press TV reported.
Owji said in the meeting that Iran and Russia had agreed to use national currencies for settlement of trade and energy payments.
Novak has also told Russia’s official Tass news agency that Moscow and Tehran had agreed to “move to the highest possible level of mutual settlements in national currencies”.
Novak said Iran and Russia will continue talks to connect their electronic payment systems as well as their financial messaging systems.
According to Owji, Iran and Russia had also signed MoUs on joint projects in the upstream and downstream of their oil and gas sectors.
Under the deals, Iran will be able to export petrochemicals and technical and engineering services to Russia, including a home-grown technology on catalyst manufacturing.
Reports suggest that under new agreements with Russia, Iran will be able to use the Russian territory to carry out swap deliveries of natural gas to other countries.
Under a similar agreement, Iran currently supplies gas to Azerbaijan in return for gas delivered to its northeastern border from Turkmenistan.