Iran, in no hurry to enter the WTO, is rushing to get Russia to do so in a newly joined group.

On January 3, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister in charge of economic policy Mahdi Safari announced that Tehran is not seeking to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) soon.

Chẳng vội tìm cách bước vào WTO, Iran lại gấp rút muốn Nga làm điều này ở một nhóm mới gia nhập. (Nguồn: Reuters)

Iran is currently an observer at the WTO. (Source: Reuters)

Sputnik quoted Mr. Safari explaining that Iran is currently an observer of the WTO, but its membership in the BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is equivalent to WTO membership.

According to Iranian diplomatic officials, as a member of the above organizations, Iran also almost becomes a member of the WTO at the regional level and enjoys benefits.

However, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister said that if proposed to join the WTO, Iran would welcome and be ready to participate.

Meanwhile, referring to BRICS, Mr. Safari said that Moscow has a lot of experience working in global and regional organizations and therefore, Russia can establish a new entity in the group in the form of a secretariat.

The lack of a secretariat for this association leads to the fact that each member chair country keeps independent information on different areas of BRICS activity; the data is not transferred to the next chair country.

Noting that Iran is “very interested in establishing the secretariat as soon as possible,” Mr. Safari also congratulated Russia on starting to hold the rotating presidency of BRICS, and thanked Moscow for its great support for Tehran in the matter of its admission to the organization.

According to Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister, Russia will be able to make it easier for the Islamic Republic as well as the new members of BRICS to achieve their goals in the association.

Besides, Mr. Safari hopes that within the BRICS framework, relations between the two countries can be established much more easily than within the bilateral framework.

BRICS currently consists of the five original members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and the newly joined countries Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

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