Russia’s Energy Minister Aleksander Novak has said Iran could join the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) by May, RT reported on March 10.

Tehran has repeatedly lobbied Moscow over the past year to allow it to join the EEU economic bloc as part of what the Iranian government would see as the creation of a bulwark against ongoing US sanctions faced by the Russians and Iranians.  

“The move to enter into a temporary agreement making for a free trade zone to be set up between Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union, which is currently at an advanced stage, will obviously trigger further development of our bilateral trade and expansion of investment cooperation,” said Novak, who is also co-head of the Russian-Iranian intergovernmental commission.

Iran’s ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanaei earlier told TASS that work on a free-trade zone agreement between the two countries that started back in 2015 was close to completion.

According to a draft agreement between Iran and the EEU signed in July last year, Iran would be able to sell some 350 items to the trade zone, while 180 could flow the other way.

The EEU was established in 2015 and is based on a customs union formed by Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. Armenia and Kyrgyzstan were later entrants into the bloc. In 2016, Vietnam signed a free trade agreement with the bloc.

The EEU allows for the free movement of goods, services, capital and workers between member countries.