Tehran, March 16: Iran’s Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Hosseini has underscored the importance of enhancing cultural ties with Afghanistan.
In a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday, Hosseini elaborated on the achievements, activities, and the objectives of a ministerial summit of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) member states, IRNA reported.
The ECO’s cultural summit took place on Monday in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
During the summit, the ECO ministers of culture discussed ways to boost cultural relations and ties.
The Iranian minister told the Afghan president that the goal of ECO’s ministerial meeting is to utilize the cultural capacities of regional countries in order to enhance relations, and highlighted the continuation of such cultural summits.
He also underlined the importance of the second weeklong Iran-Afghanistan Friendship Exhibition held in Kabul.
Hosseini also invited President Karzai to participate in the International Nowruz Celebrations in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Karzai, for his part, described ECO’s cultural summit and the opening of Iran-Afghanistan Friendship Exhibition as positive steps, and urged the countries in the region to pay more heed to the enhancement of cultural ties.
The ECO is an intergovernmental regional organization established in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey with the aim of promoting economic, technical and cultural cooperation among member states.
The organization was expanded in 1992 to include seven new members, namely Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
——–Agencies