Iranian President Khatami to Pay Visit to Minsk in Late 2002 :: Charter'97 :: News

The Belarusian ambassador in Teheran Leonid Rachkov told the “Iran” newspaper correspondent that relations between Belarus and Iran in the sphere of politics, economy and culture are “developing successfully and have great perspectives”. Leonid Rachkov reminded about the visit to Belarus by the chairman of the Iranian “Medjlis” Karrubi, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and the Minister of culture Masdjed Djamei, claiming that the enumeration of these visits is enough in itself to form a positive opinion of the relations between the two states.

Having positively assessed the relations between Iran and Belarus, Leonid Rachkov said: “Last year could be called a year of deeper relations between the two countries. There took place mutual visits on the very top level during which the sides discussed most key issues and formed a legal basis in the form of 20 bilateral intergovernmental and corporative treaties. Moreover, there take place the meetings of the joint commission on economic cooperation between Iran and Belarus.”

Among the most crucial events of the last year one could cite the implementation of the forth session of the joint commission for economic cooperation between the two countries in November 2001 in Teheran. At that meeting they raised problems of trade and economic cooperation, defined mutual interests, ways of raising the trade turnover level and other problems.

Leonid Rachkovsky underscored that there are plenty of opportunities for collaboration: “Last year the trade turnover volume between the two countries amounted to $40mln. This figure isn’t that big.”

In the end of their conversation the Belarusian ambassador said that the existing relations between the two states are a result of Alexander Lukashenko and Mohammad Khatami’s “will and tolerance”.