Transportation, Maritime Affairs and Communications Minister Binali Yıldırım announced that Turkey recently signed a deal with Iran to purchase oil worth 80 million euros in exchange for selling rail to Iran.

During an opening ceremony involving the Karabük-Zonguldak section of the Irmak-Karabük-Zonguldak Railway project, Yıldırım said Turkey's dependency on foreign resources for the construction of railways has already ended. He added that parallel to this, Iran purchases rail to support its domestic infrastructure projects through a barter trade system with Turkey. In exchange, the Turkish Petroleum Refineries Company will receive the oil.

Yıldırım also stressed that when the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) first came to power in 2002, Turkey was unable to produce Iran's rail. He added that exports of rail to Iran as well as many other countries are significant at this point.

What the deal with Iran means for Karabük, one of the leading rail producers and the capital district of the province of Karabük in the Black Sea region, is that facilities in the district will be operating at full capacity throughout the year. Approximately 12.76 percent of Turkey's oil imports came from Iran in 2015.