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Iran Backs Visa-Free Regime With Armenia

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  • Iran Backs Visa-Free Regime With Armenia

    IRAN BACKS VISA-FREE REGIME WITH ARMENIA

    http://asbarez.com/119502/iran-backs-visa-free-regime-with-armenia/
    Wednesday, February 12th, 2014

    Iran's Ambassador to Armenia, Mohammad Reisi

    YEREVAN (Combined Sources)--Iran and Armenia may soon lift visa
    requirements for their citizens travelling to each other's country,
    according to the Iranian ambassador in Yerevan, Mohammad Reisi,
    RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) reports.

    In an interview with the ArmNews TV channel aired this week, Reisi also
    announced that Iranian President Hassan Rohani will travel to Armenia
    later this year on an official visit that will underscore close ties
    between the two neighboring states. "The visit will take place in
    the course of this year," he said without specifying a concrete date.

    President Serzh Sarkisian was among a dozen foreign heads of state who
    attended Rohani's inauguration in Tehran last August. The two leaders
    held separate talks following the ceremony. Rohani was reported
    to tell Sarkisian that the Islamic Republic is keen to expand its
    "deeply-rooted" ties with Armenia.

    Rohani's controversial predecessor, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, paid
    an official visit to Yerevan in late 2011. It focused, in large
    measure, on the implementation of Armenian-Iranian energy projects
    that had fallen behind schedule. Those include the construction of a
    hydro-electric plant on the Arax river serving as the Armenian-Iranian
    border.

    Reisi implied that Rohani's visit will come after the next meeting
    of an Armenian-Iranian intergovernmental commission on economic
    cooperation. He said the commission should discuss not only the energy
    projects but also ambitious plans to build a railway connecting the
    two countries.

    "The best indicator of Armenian-Iranian mutual trust is that the visa
    regime between the two states may well be abolished," Reisi added in
    the ArmNews interview. "In order to facilitate contacts between the
    two peoples, we have communicated to the Armenian side our readiness
    to put in place a visa-free regime."

    Tehran has long been seeking visa-free travel between Armenia and
    Iran. Successive Armenian governments have been lukewarm about
    the idea.

    The existing visa requirements have not prevented a sharp rise in the
    number of Iranian tourists visiting Armenia over the past decade. It
    reached a record-high level of more than 100,000 in 2011.

    "I hope that one day one million Iranian tourists will visit Armenia,"
    then Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said during a November
    2011 trip to Yerevan. "I also hope that one day a visa-free regime
    will be established between the two countries and crossing our border
    will be as easy as travelling inside our countries."

    Efforts to Reduce Arax River Pollution In a meeting on Wednesday,
    Iran's energy minister and Armenia's minister of environmental
    protection agreed to step up joint efforts to monitor and reduce
    water pollution in the Arax River, Tasnim news agency reported.

    The Iranian capital of Tehran hosted Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian
    and the visiting Armenian Minister of Environmental Protection Aram
    Harutyunian, who discussed a range of environmental issues, including
    active cooperation to tackle pollution in the River Arax.

    The rising pollution levels in the border river have been blamed mainly
    on discharge of untreated waste from an Armenian copper factory into
    the river's water.

    In the meeting, the two ministers, accompanied by their senior
    advisers, decided that Iran and Armenia should put efforts into
    monitoring water pollution in Arax and take measures to stop the
    discharge of toxic waste from the copper factory into the river.

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