Afghan Minister Praises Iran's Progress in Science

Sangin made the remarks in a meeting with Iranian First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi in Tehran, and said that Iran has achieved noticeable progress and great achievements in different fields. He praised Iran's cooperation and assistance for commissioning Afghanistan Technology Center, and said for advancement and progress, both nations need expansion of close cooperation. He continued that Iran has special importance for Afghanistan and all Afghan officials are interested in expansion of cooperation with Iran, and added that foreign countries are in Afghanistan today, but they won't be there tomorrow while Iran will always be with Afghanistan. Rahimi, for his part, called Afghanistan a country with old civilization and culture which has tolerated a lot of damage, and said now Iran and Afghanistan with helping each other should find ways to compensate the loss. Iran and Afghanistan enjoy expanding ties and cooperation and observers believe that the good achievements gained in area of their mutual cooperation should be deemed as a result of the efforts made by the two countries' leaders. Earlier this year, a senior Iranian trade official announced that Afghanistan imports 27.6 of its multi-billion-dollar needs from Iran, and said the figure can still increase in future. "At present 27.6% of Afghanistan's nearly $5bln imports from the world countries is from Iran, which is a considerable figure," Director-General of the Asia and Pacific Trade Office of Iran's Trade Promotion Organization Amir Talebi said, adding that the number can increase in future.