A preferential trade agreement between Turkey and Iran has proved to be a huge disappointment in its first two years, with bilateral trade lagging far behind the $35 billion target the deal was supposed to achieve. The agreement, which took effect Jan. 1, 2015, introduced tariff cuts on about 300 products with a view of tripling the trade volume. The results, however, turned far off the mark, failing to achieve even one-third of the target.
Starting from its first year, the deal led to an awkward outcome: Instead of growing, the trade volume between the two neighbors declined. At the end of 2015, Turkish-Iranian trade stood at $9.76 billion — not only $25 billion short of the target, but also $4 billion below the 2014 figure of $13.7 billion.
