{"id":22198,"date":"2018-11-17T14:22:07","date_gmt":"2018-11-17T14:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22198"},"modified":"2018-11-17T14:22:07","modified_gmt":"2018-11-17T14:22:07","slug":"iraq-to-establish-free-trade-zone-along-border-with-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22198","title":{"rendered":"Iraq to establish free-trade zone along border with Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Iraqi President Barham Salih has announced that his country has agreed to establish a “free-trade zone” along its border with Iran<\/a>, following a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani<\/a> in Tehran.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a joint press conference in the Iranian capital on Friday, Salih declared that the relationship between the two neighbouring countries is a “fixed principle” that is “rooted in shared history, faith and geography”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We care about our relationship with Iran,” Salih declared.<\/p>\n

Salih did not give full details about the free-trade zone.<\/p>\n

But Rouhani was quoted on Friday by state television as saying that he wants to raise bilateral trade between the two countries from the current $12bn to $20bn in the coming year.<\/p>\n

Rouhani also said that the two leaders also talked about electricity and gas swap, as well as cooperation on petroleum products and oil exploration.<\/p>\n

According to reports, the two leaders have also discussed building a 35km railway linking the two countries.<\/p>\n

Salih’s two-day visit in Iran comes less than two weeks after the United States reimposed oil sanctions<\/a> that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal.<\/p>\n

Iraq<\/a> has obtained an exemption from the US to continue buying its energy needs from Iran.<\/p>\n

The US<\/a> and Iran are Iraq’s two biggest allies and the sanctions put Baghdad in a difficult economic and political position.<\/p>\n

Iran, which has had a major influence over Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, is hoping to maintain exports to its neighbour despite the renewed US sanctions.<\/p>\n

Iraq is Iran’s second-largest market after China<\/a>, buying everything from food and machinery to electricity and natural gas.<\/p>\n

Washington has vowed that the renewed sanctions would put financial pressure on Tehran to halt its alleged support for international armed groups, its military activities in the Middle East<\/a> and its ballistic missile programmes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iraqi President Barham Salih has announced that his country has agreed to establish a “free-trade zone” along its border with Iran, following a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani in Tehran.\u00a0 In a joint press conference in the Iranian capital on Friday, Salih declared that the relationship between the two neighbouring countries is a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}