Mintimer Shaimiev meets Manouchehr Mottaki

On May 19, in the Kazan Kremlin, Tatarstan State Counsellor, Chairman of Board of Trustees of the Revival Regional Foundation Mintimer Shaimiev met former Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Secretary General of the World Organization for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought Manouchehr Mottaki.

Mottaki, who worked as Iranian Foreign Minister in 2005-2010, came to Kazan to take part in the ninth International Economic Summit "Russia – the Islamic World: KazanSummit 2017".

Shaimiev and Mottaki met in Kazan in December 2007, when the Iranian Foreign Minister visited Tatarstan during his visit to the Russian Federation.

The first President of Tatarstan reminded that business and friendly relations between the two republics were established after his visit to Iran in 1996, when the Memorandum of Cooperation was signed. Then, in 2001, President of Iran Seyyed Mohammad Khatami visited Tatarstan.

Shaimiev told the guest about the results of the seven-year activity of the Revival Regional Foundation in Bolgar and Sviyazhsk, as well as about new projects, including the construction of the Bolgar Islamic Academy and the reconstruction of the Cathedral of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God.

They also discussed some issues related to the development of cultural relations between Tatarstan and Iran as part of cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In particular, they talked about the exchange of experience in the sphere of preserving the historical and cultural heritage and about the specifics of the development of the Islamic religion in modern environment.

The problems of organizing the work of the Bolgar Islamic Academy were also touched upon. Manouchehr Mottaki noted that the Islamic Azad University, the largest private higher educational institution in Iran and the Middle East, has been successfully operating in Iran since 1982.