Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk has welcomed Iran’s application to join the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) as an observer member.

According to The Iran Project, Overchuk told reporters after a Tuesday meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in Moscow that a decision to admit Iran as an observer member in the EAEU could come at the end of December.

“The Russian side expresses its desire to expand economic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said, according to remarks carried by Iran’s official IRNA news agency.

The EAEU includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia while Moldova and Cuba have observer status in the bloc.

Iran signed a free trade deal with the EAEU in December whereby it can enjoy tariff-free exports for 87% of the goods it ships to member countries in return for a similar arrangement for imports from those countries.

The agreement needs to be ratified in the parliaments of EAEU members and Iran before it goes into force.

Russia’s State Duma approved the agreement last week. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Tuesday member states should speed up work needed to ratify the free trade agreement with Iran.

“One of our future tasks is to ensure the entry into force of a full-fledged free trade agreement with Iran... All parties have to quickly complete their internal procedures,” said Mishustin in an address to the EAEU’s Council meeting.
Iran and the EAEU are currently in a preferential trade arrangement based on a deal signed in June 2017 in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

Axxording to Bakytzhan Sagintayev, a former Kazakh prime minister who currently serves as EAEU’s Chairman of the Board, Iran submitted an application on May 27 demanding to become an observer member in the bloc.