“We have entered a currency agreement with Russia and fully removed the use of the US dollar. From now we will only trade in rials and rubles,” Mohammad Reza Farzin, director general of Iran’s Central Bank, said.

The countries’ financial authorities have agreed on the exchange rate to be used for foreign trade transactions between Moscow and Tehran, he confirmed.

Reza Farzin announced that the Islamic Republic hopes to take steps in a similar direction with other States.

Earlier official reports indicated that Iranian and Russian companies hope to conduct direct interbank transactions without resorting to the Western-dominated SWIFT system to do financial operations.

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