Iranian Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts Minister Ali-Asghar Mounesan and Giuseppe Perrone, the Italian Ambassador to Iran, discussed ways to expand tourism and cultural ties on Monday.
Iran’s tourism sector achieved growth despite the adverse effects of the U.S. sanctions and the country tried to minimize the effects of the sanctions, Mounesan said.
Given the positive trend of the ongoing negotiations, good opportunities will be provided to strengthen Iran’s cooperation with various countries, he added.
The minister also announced Iran’s readiness to hold a joint handicrafts exhibition in Iran and Italy.
Perrone, for his part, said that Iran enjoys enormous tourist attractions, which could be a good opportunity for tourism prosperity and cultural cooperation with different countries.
Pointing to the joint archeological projects, carried out by Iranian ad Italian experts over the past decades, he asked for more strong cooperation in this field.
In 2019, the two nations celebrated 60 years of joint missions in the field of archaeology. Tehran and Rome have enhanced cooperation over the past couple of decades, with the arenas of archaeology and cultural heritage at the topmost level.
In an exclusive interview with the Tehran Times in August 2020, Perrone said: “Archaeology is certainly an area for us that is extremely important because it tells the world how our countries are heirs to ancient civilizations and this extremely important because it is part of identity, it’s part of who we are, and it helps us to better connect with one another.”
“And I think because our cultural ties are so deep and so complete in every area, that we do have a responsibility to showcase this richness and to tell people the story of this important connection that has always existed between Italy and Iran in different areas so we look forward to our future projects which are going to be quite amazing,” he stated.
Tens of Italian archaeologists have worked with their Iranian fellows to ace important discoveries. Their cooperation can be classified into four major lines of Joint mission in Fars province, Archaeological project in Shahr-e-Soukhteh, Sapienza University in Kermanshah project, and Expedition in Khuzestan.
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