President Rouhani: A New Chapter Opened in Tehran-Bishkek Relations
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani highlighted the importance of cooperation agreements signed between the Islamic Republic and Kyrgyzstan and said a new chapter has been opened in the history of the relations between the two countries.
Speaking to reporters in a joint press conference with his Kyrgyz counterpart, Almazbek Atambayev, in Bishkek on Friday, President Rouhani said Atambayev’s trip to Iran last year was a milestone in the bilateral relations and that today, another major stride was taken to expand the ties.
“The independent policy of the Kyrgyz government is highly important to us,” he further said, adding that the Islamic Republic respects this policy as well as the Central Asian country’s anti-extremism culture.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Rouhani said Iran and Kyrgyzstan consider the relaxation of visa requirements for the two countries’ citizens as a principled policy in their bilateral relations.
Atambayev, for his part, underlined his country’s support for Iran’s permanent membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), saying he believes that it can promote the status of the organization given Iran’s great potentials.
The remakes came after high-ranking officials from Iran and Kyrgyzstan inked five documents to boost cooperation between the two countries in various areas.
The documents include a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation between Iran’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the Central Asian country’s State Committee of Information Technologies and Communications.
The other documents signed by the two countries focus on enhancement of bilateral collaborations in the fields of health and medicine, culture and arts, social affairs, and combating narcotics trafficking.
Heading a high-ranking political and economic delegation, President Rouhani arrived in Kyrgyzstan on the final leg of a tour of the Caucasus and Central Asia that earlier took him to Armenia and Kazakhstan.
