MOSCOW, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- Russia and Turkey have signed an agreement on bilateral settlements in national currencies, the Russian Finance Ministry said Tuesday.
The agreement was signed by Russian First Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and Turkish Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, the ministry said in a statement.
The main goal of the document is to increase and gradually switch to the use of the Russian ruble and Turkish lira for bilateral settlements, create an appropriate financial market infrastructure and increase the attractiveness of national currencies for businesses, it said.
The agreement also provides an expansion of the infrastructure for receiving Russian MIR bank cards in Turkey and the connection of Turkish banks and companies to the Bank of Russia Financial Messages Transfer System.
Russia and Turkey intend to organize the interaction of national financial message transmission systems with the subsequent possibility of connecting other countries to these systems, the statement said.
Last week, speaking at the Russian Energy Week forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was cutting trade in dollars due to Washington's attempts to use the U.S. currency as a "political weapon."
This, according to Putin, forces countries to cut U.S. dollar reserves and reduce transactions in dollars.
