Ireland Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has approved the veterinary certification for exporting beef to Iran and will start the process soon, following negotiations between Irish and Iranian agriculture officials, as reported by the Irish website www.agriland.ie. Underlining the progress made in recent talks, the Irish minister of agriculture Simon Coveney said that he has already held two meetings with the Iranian ambassador to Dublin and plans to meet another delegation from Iran. Coveney said that Irish officials plan to take a trade mission to Iran in the next few months. “Iran has a population of 80 million people and imports a sizeable volume of beef from Brazil at the moment. [We think that] they are very interested in trying to get European and Irish beef back into the Iranian markets at premium level,” he said. Last January, the head of Iran-Ireland Parliamentary Friendship Group Javad Heravi, and chairman of the Oireachtas (the Irish Parliament) Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade Pat Breen, met in Tehran to explore avenues for bolstering bilateral ties.
