Iran’s Rouhani arrives in Turkey to meet Erdogan

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani arrived in Istanbul on Wednesday evening to meet with his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan and Rouhani will chair the Fifth High Council for Strategic Affairs, at which the two countries are expected to increase bilateral trade volume to $30 billion.

The two leaders are expected to sign important agreements in the fields of economy, politics and culture during the visit.

Erdogan and Rouhani are also expected to discuss the latest developments in Syria, where the two countries support opposing sides in the seven-year-long civil war. Turkey backs the opposition to the regime of Bashar Assad, whereas Iran is one of the closest allies of the Syrian regime, in addition to Russia. All three countries are taking part in the peace talks known as the Astana talks and held numerous bilateral and trilateral meetings to end the fighting and launch a political process.

Rouhani met with Parliament Speaker Binali Yıldırım earlier this month, and expressed Iran’s desire to further improve relations with Turkey and speed up implementation of an agreement to boost cooperation in numerous fields, including banking and energy topics, particularly trade under sanctions imposed by the U.S.