Iran-Croatia Stress Development Of Ties

Tehran, April 19, IRNA – Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Ramin Mehmanparast and Ms. Mirjana Mladineo, Adviser on Foreign Policy to Croatia's President, emphasized need for expansion of relations between the two countries in Zagreb Wednesday. “Iran with its great civilization and history is an important country of the world and Croatia is keen to develop relations with Tehran,” Mladineo said. The official noted that there are lots of common grounds for cooperation between Iran and Croatia to develop cooperation. Mehmanparast for his part underlined that Iran aims to help the establishment of peace and security in the region and that this is one of the most important principles of the Islamic Republic's foreign policy. “EU economic crisis and the following social incidents are the results of a wrong governing system and the west needs to review its system to solve these problems; Iran does not welcome the imposed sanctions but they have strengthened the Iranian nation’s commitment and resulted in greater progress and as you lnow Tehran has also implemented the country's subsidy reform plan successfully during the sanctions which was praised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).” Iranian spokesman asserted that Tehran welcomes the expansion of relations with Croatia in all fields including the fields of media and tourism. Iran and Croatia established diplomatic relations on April 18, 1992 when Iran became the 7th country to recognize the newly-independent Croatia. Croatia has an embassy in Tehran and Iran maintains an embassy and a cultural center in Zagreb. Iranian vice-president at the time, Hassan Habibi visited Croatia in 1995 and the former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami visited Zagreb, Croatia in 2005. The former Croatian president Stipe Mesic had a three-day state visit to Iran in 2001. In 2008 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hailed the two countries' relations and that their shared cultures and histories, owing to the possible Iranian origin of the Croats, would strengthen those relations. During the same year, the Croatian national oil company INA expanded active in the Ardabil Province./end