about to sign a free-trade agreement, but Armenia says it won’t sign such an agreement because Iran is offering lousy terms.
The Tehran Times of September 13 said a free trade pact had been negotiated and would be signed during the upcoming visit to Tehran of Armenian Economy Minister Nerses Yeritsian.
But an Armenian official, who wished to remain anonymous, told Radio Farda that was not true. “The Iranians very much want to have it signed, but the terms they are offering are not beneficial for us,” the official said.
He said talks were ongoing, but they were only “preliminary discussions” on a free-trade deal and talk of any impending signing was “premature.”
The Islamic Republic has been pushing free trade with most if not all of its neighbors in recent months. That may be a response to US banking sanctions that have made it harder for Iran to conduct normal trade around the world.
However, the free trade calls would seem to conflict with the protectionist philosophy of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi, who has publicly endorsed higher tariffs—the exact opposite of free trade—as a key policy for protecting Iranian manufacturers from foreign competition.