The agreement was reached between Carlo Cherti, Italian Cultural Attaché in Iran, and Ghahraman Soleimani, deputy head of the Organization for Cultural and Islamic Relations of Iran during a meeting in Tehran on Tuesday.
The meeting was held following Soleimani's last week's trip to Italy where he held talks with a number of cultural and scientific figures, particularly Italian Iranologists, and reached agreements on various cultural cooperation, the most significant of which was the decision to select Tehran as the hosting destination for the SIE conference.
During the meeting on Tuesday, Soleimani called for further cooperation between the two countries in the areas of culture, archeology, and Iranology.
Carlo Cherti, for his part, hailed the good cultural relations with Iran, saying “Italy will be the guest of honor for Tehran International Book Fair 2017, and this will provide both sides with a golden opportunity to further expand cultural cooperation.”
He went on to add that Italy is also keenly interested in cooperating with the Iranian side in art, music, cultural heritage, literature and science and technology.
The two sides also reached agreements on other issues including holding the commemoration ceremony of famous Italian Iranologists, expanding academic cooperation between scientific and research centers, showcasing Persian manuscripts of Italy in Iranian museums, holding training workshops on literary text translations, and developing Italian language and literature courses in higher educational levels in Iran's universities.
The Societas Iranologica Europaea (S.I.E.), founded in 1983 in Rome, is an international learned society in the field of Iranian Studies with members from European and non-European countries. The aim of the S.I.E. is to promote Ancient, Middle and Modern Iranian Studies in all subject areas of the field, including philology, linguistics, literature, history, religions, art, archaeology, philosophy, ethnology, geography, human sciences, and jurisprudence.
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