Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei received Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai on Sunday evening. During the meeting, Ayatollah Khamenei pointed to vast domain of culture and history the two nations have in common and highlighted the role played by Afghan scholars in progress and promotion of Islamic teachings and Persian language.
“In addition to its rich human and cultural resources, Afghanistan also enjoys rich natural resources and these capacities and commonalities should be exploited to improve cooperation between the two countries,” Leader said.
Ayatollah Khamenei stressed necessity of more cooperation and relations between Iran and Afghanistan and asserted that “Americans and some countries in the region have not recognized Afghanistan’s capacities and do not want close ties between our countries; Iran, however, sees Afghanistan’s security and progress its own.”
Pointing to Iran’s considerable progress in science, technology, culture and diplomacy as grounds for cooperation between the two countries, Leader deemed issues such as ‘migration, water, transportation and security’ as resolvable and called for serious measures be taken within a timeframe.
He also touched upon the issue of Afghan immigrants among which hundreds of thousands are studying in Iran; “Afghan people are very clever and talented and this talent in education must be used properly as your country needs educated Afghans to reconstruct their homeland.”
Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Khamenei also dubbed Tehran as ‘home’ for ‘Afghan brothers’ and expressed hope for improvement and progress of domestic capabilities and Afghan nation and government.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, for his part, expressed pleasure over his visit to Tehran and noted deep cultural and historical ties between the two nations.
“We are trying to return Afghanistan to its historical identity as a connection hub in the region,” said Ashraf Ghani and added that “Kabul’s political will is expansion of bilateral ties with Tehran.”
Afghan president described policy of his state as changing tensions and internal conflicts into cooperation grounds and regarding issues such as terrorism, drugs, migrants and shared water resources at borders asserted that “the issues between our countries can be resolved by political will and within the timetable agreed upon during this visit.”
He also acknowledged that Iran has suffered greatest damages from drug trafficking; “none of our neighbors has recognized or confronted the threat of drug trafficking as much as Iran; and we are ready to cooperate with Iran to fight against this threat.”
Ashraf Ghani called for improvement of relations in regard to transportation, investment and cultural and economic cooperation and told Ayatollah Khamenei that “under your wise leadership, Iran has maintained its historical identity and we hope to witness improvement of our relations and cooperation under your prudent leadership.”
HRGH
MNA
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