TEHRAN - An Iranian foreign ministry official said that Iran and Turkmenistan have agreed for transit of 20 million cubic meters of Turkmen gas via Iran.

Gholamreza Ansari, the economic chief director of foreign ministry, told Mehr news agency that the five-sided summit of foreign ministers, which was held in Ashghabat on Sunday, would have considerable political and economic outcomes for regional countries.
The five foreign ministers of Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Qatar and Oman signed an agreement on transportation and transit of goods via railway, sea and land in a meeting in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, on Sunday.
“It is predicted that by signing the deal, the amount of countries’ investments in road, railway and maritime transportation sectors will be increased,” Ansari added.
The official stated that Iran now is the cheapest and safest route for goods transit from Central Asia and the Caspian Sea countries to the Persian Gulf littoral states.
Increasing profit margin of transport, goods transit and creating jobs are other advantages of the five-sided agreement.
According to Ansari, totally 10 million tons of goods were transited from Iran to other countries in 2010.
He stated that the newly-signed agreement would increase this amount to more than 50 million tons in coming years.
---Iran, Turkmen presidents discuss gas export
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov in a phone talk discussed exporting Turkmen gas to Iran, Fars news agency reported.
Ahmadinejad and Berdimuhamedov inaugurated the second section of the second Iran-Turkmenistan gas transport pipeline in November 2010.
The pipeline is a 500-kilometer long pipeline with a diameter of 48 inches. This pipeline has the capacity to transport 58 million cubic meters of gas per day.
The first phase of the 1024km pipeline came on stream in January 2010 to deliver gas from the Turkmenistan's Dovletabad field to Iran's Khangiran refinery