"Whatever Iran needs is available in India," Iran's Envoy to India says

New Delhi [India], December 11 (ANI): Iran's Ambassador to India, Iraj Elahi on Wednesday said that India has all that Iran needs, and hence he plans to work to improve accessibility between both the countries.

Elahi, while attending the Iran Food Festival in the national capital told ANI that he was working with Indian officials to remove bottlenecks in the transfer of money in trade.

"I have studied the market of India and Iranian market. I always mention to my authority, my government that whatever Iran needs is available in India. But we should make it accessible. Accessibility means that we should remove the problem of transfer of money. We need to make different legal bases for our trade. So I am in close contact with the Minister of Trade of India, and I have planned a joint meeting with the Minister of Trade of Iran find a solution for the difficulties which is now and the bottlenecks for trade between two countries," he told ANI.

Elahi added that Iran is facilitating travel with India by exempting Indian passport holders from visa.

"In Iran, we are facilitating and giving more facility to Indian tourists. We have exempted Indian passport holders from visa. Their passport will not be stamped by Iranian authorities. So they can easily visit Iran. And we are also trying to increase the frequency of flight between two countries. I have talked to Air India and other flights. I hope that there will be some progress, and Indians can easily buy a ticket and visit Iran," he said.

Elahi told ANI that he encouraged Iranians to visit India and see the culture and food. Iran wants to improve the people-to-people ties and trade.

"From Iranian side, I encourage the Iranians to visit India. They should come to India and see the beauty of India. They should come to India to try Indian cuisine. They buy souvenirs from India. So India is not an unknown country for Iran. But people need to come to India by themselves and see the reality of India especially at this moment. India is daily improving, developing and as a new emerging economy we can learn from India, Iranian people can come to India, can set up joint venture in different fields of industries. So we have planned B2B and G2G meeting. In the coming weeks, we will witness more events," he said.

He said that there are commonalities between food of India and Iran.

"Today we hosted different Indian stakeholders, tourism and diplomats in our food festival, Iranian cuisine similar to Indian cuisine, but just a little bit different... We have different commonalities with Indian, so as you mentioned, people-to-people contacts are important. This is the beginning. We plan to promote tourism between two countries," he said.

Elahi further said that Iran is following the situation in Syria and wishes for stability in the region.

"Iran is seriously following the current situation in Syria. Syria was a close friend to Iran, so the current situation of Syria is not acceptable for Iran. But the main concern of Iran is sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria. It is very soon to judge about the future of Syria. But what our concern is the stability and security of the whole region. We hope that the current situation in Syria will not affect the stability and security of the region," he said. (ANI)