Sri Lanka's President Maithripala Sirisena said on Tuesday that there is no obstacle to further development and expansion of ties between Colombo and Tehran.
He made the remark in Colombo, in a meeting with visiting Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif.
In May, the Sri Lankan president visited Tehran in order to improve trade relations and secure investments from Iran.
The top Iranian diplomat referred to a variety of areas in which the two countries can cooperate, and stressed continued cooperation and trade in different fields, including energy and agriculture.
Both officials also exchanged views on latest regional and international issues.
Following his trip to Sri Lanka, the Iranian foreign minister plans to visit Singapore to sign a treaty between Iran and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
On July 7, the Iranian Expediency Council approved a bill allowing Iran to join the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC).
The Iranian Parliament had earlier passed the bill.
The bill to join TAC was presented to the Iranian Parliament first in 2013. It calls for Iran’s close cooperation with the international organization to help boost Iran's economy.
TAC was signed by ASEAN’s founding countries Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Singapore in 1976. Other members joined it later to promote the treaty to an agenda for ASEAN member states to regulate their conduct through a general emphasis on peaceful settlement of differences and the principle of noninterference.
The 10-member ASEAN bloc represents 630 million people and economies with a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP ) of around $2.4 trillion.
The ASEAN meeting comes two months after the Trump administration pulled the US out of an international nuclear agreement with Iran, and moved to choke off the Islamic Republic’s oil exports.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry says there is consensus among the member states of ASEAN to accept Iran as a member of TAC.
