“Just finished excellent meetings with the President, the Prime Minister, the Speaker of Parliament & the Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka,” reads the opening of the last tweet of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Wednesday.
Posting the message, he marked the end of his official visit to Sri Lanka where he and Sri Lankan officials vowed for expansion of bilateral ties and broadening of cooperation.
He hailed his visit to Sri Lankan capital city of Colombo for excellent meetings which paved the way for “consolidating long & friendly bilateral relations based on mutual respect.”
The next stop of the Iranian diplomatic chief is Singapore where he is slated to sign the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
“Departing for Singapore to sign TAC with ASEAN & meet with more friends,” reads the concluding sentence of his tweet which marks his optimism to reap good results in Singapore.
“Consensus among Southeast Asian countries in accepting Iran as a member of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation with the ASEAN signifies the importance all the members of the association attach to relations and interaction with Iran as an important and influential power in regional and international calculations,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said on Saturday.
Since Monday, foreign ministers of the member states of ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) have convened in Singapore for a six day discussion on regional and trans-regional issues related to this Association and the TAC.
The ministers of ten member states, as well as the ministers of observer countries, including Iran, will discuss the latest regional and trans-regional developments in the 51st session of the Association and the subsidiary meetings, the 19th meeting of ASEAN Plus, the 8th ministerial meeting of East Asia, and the 25th regional conference of ASEAN.
YNG