Iran, Russia to use national currencies in trade ties

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iran and Russia have replaced US Dollar with their own currencies in their trade ties, a senior Iranian diplomat announced on Saturday, January 7.

Tehran's Ambassador to Moscow Seyed Reza Sajjadi said that the proposal for replacing US Dollar with Ruble and Rial was raised by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Astana on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting.

"Since then, we have acted on this basis and a part of our interactions is done in Ruble now," Sajjadi stated, adding that many Iranian traders are using Ruble for their trade deals.

"There is a similar interest in the Russian side," the envoy stated, adding that Moscow is against unilateral sanctions on Iran outside the UN Security Council, specially the recent sanctions against Iran's Central Bank (CBI).

"The move (imposing sanction on the CBI) is unacceptable. Russians have clearly announced that they will not accept these sanctions and Iran's nuclear issue is resolvable just through negotiations."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hit back at the US after Washington introduced new sanctions against Iran's central bank.

President Ahmadinejad told an annual meeting of senior central bank officials that Iran's central bank would respond with "force" to the new US sanctions intended to pressure Tehran to abandon its nuclear program, Fars News Agency reported.