Friday, 20 July 2007
RA Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan received the delegation led by Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Islamic the Republic Iran, co-chair of the intergovernmental commission on coordination of Armenian-Iranian relations Manuchehr Mottaki.
To begin with, Mr. Mottaki conveyed to the Prime Minister of Armenia the greetings of Iranian First Vice-President Parviza Daudi and the confirmation of the invitation for the Prime Minister to visit the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Iranian Minister for Foreign Affairs expressed hope that the invitation would be accepted and before yearend 2007 the RA Prime Minister and the President of the National Assembly would visit his country. Serzh Sargsyan accepted the invitation with gratitude by noting the importance of reciprocated high-level contacts in the light of the ever-strengthening bilateral ties.
The Prime Minister expressed felicitations on the start of the 7th session of the intergovernmental commission on coordination of the Armenian-Iranian relations and said that the nomination of the Minister for Foreign Affairs as Iranian co-chair of the commission was an efficiency-oriented step susceptible to further promote the bilateral ties. In the opinion of the Prime Minister, the commission could play an appreciable role in the increase of the level of commodity circulation between the two countries, implementation of mutually advantageous programs in a number of prospective areas, as well as the realization of the arrangements reached between the Presidents of Armenia and Iran, as a whole.
Manuchehr Mottaki said that the development of bilateral exchanges was largely promoted by the realization of infrastructural programs and, in this respect, the cooperation in the energy sector was said to be an exemplary one. He also considered it extremely important to increase the trade turnover and added that at this point Iran
's commodity circulation with different countries of the world amounted to over USD 100 billion, with the imports making about USD 40 billion. "We deem the increased level of Armenian imports to Iran as a priority for our country in the sphere of foreign trade,"
