Mr. Ali Larijani and President Borut Pahor of Slovenia sat in Iran’s Parliament venue to discuss bilateral ties, especially prospects of trade and cooperation with young East European country which recently opened its embassy in Tehran. Mr. Pahor also visited Parliament open session of Wednesday and briefly addressed the session, where he believed inter-parliamentary relations had been crucial in opening of other aspects of bilateral cooperation.
Mr. Larijani also highlighted the opening of the embassy as crucial to improved ties with Iran; “Iran hails friendly ties with Slovenia and we believe both countries would work in a spirit of collaboration and mutual respect to provide national interests of both sides,” he added. “Parliament especially supports any economic initiative to bring Slovenian investments to Iran’s industrial projects.”
On the latest conditions of the region, Larijani reiterated Iran’s position which always supported dialogue of native clashing groups and rejected interventionism of the foreign powers in Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria, where he contended that international community had been heedless of terrorism fostered in its well-prepared grounds; “there has been no seriousness as to the ways of effectively addressing terrorism; at best, measures taken to solve the problem have largely been mere deflecting the public attentions from the major sources, thus terrorism continued to mature and to finally contaminate the whole region,” he emphasized.
Mr. Pahor for his part believed his meetings with Iranian officials had been successful; “Iran is an influential country in the region, a land which has been the hotbed of a great civilization; it is also important for Slovenia in terms of its economy and huge potentials for trade; this provided enough motivations and impetus for us to improve our relations through among other measures opening our embassy in Tehran,” he told Larijani.
On terrorism, Pahor voiced concerns about the alarming levels terrorists had worked their catastrophic influence in the region; he shared the view that the international community had been lax and there should be a global alliance against extremism.
On EU-Iran relations, Pahor promised to work to improve bilateral ties of EU and Iran as a member of the Union; “JCPOA was an example which opened windows of opportunity for Tehran to interact with the rest of the world; Slovenia welcomes cooperation with Iran in joint investments in technology, new (renewable) energies, and the environment,” he concluded.
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