Iranian embassy in Ankara marks revolution's 40th year

By Ali Murat Alhas

ANKARA (AA) - The Iranian embassy in Ankara on Monday held a reception to mark the 40th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.

Newly-appointed Iranian Ambassador to Ankara Mohammad Farazmand told Anadolu Agency the past four decades ascended Iran to “a regional power and an independent country” leading to a great change in country’s history, culture and society.

He argued that since the revolution in 1979, Iran has presented a model of security for the West-Asia region. “Unfortunately, security is the missing ring for most countries in the region. Iran presented and gave a model for security, which is one of the most important achievements aspiring other regional players,” he said.

He went on to note that Iran ranks among the top 10 countries in scientific production, and it has achieved greatly, unlike before the revolution.

Farazmand praised the Astana talks as the only peace process to progress to find a solution to the Syrian conflict.

Stressing the peace processes before the talks were neglected and did not pay attention to the realities of the crisis he said, “what this process and the members of it [Ankara, Tehran, and Moscow] have achieved in the past two years is more than what the other countries did in the past four years.

“The presidents of Turkey, Iran, and Russia will meet in Sochi [this week] and there will be another concrete meeting to push this process forward,” he said.

“Hopefully, under this process and initiative, after the summit, there might be some progress in the constitutional committee, which is one of the elements of Astana process. Most probably, there will be significant progress on this thread,” he added.

Turkey’s Transport and Infrastructure Minister Cahit Turhan, in his ceremonial speech, said Turkey and Iran were two countries completing each other in terms of political, commercial and cultural ties.

"Turkey is Iran's window opening to West while Iran, for Turkey, is like a window opening to East," he said.

Turhan went on to note the Sochi talks had a symbolic value regarding the maintenance of the momentum between Turkey and Iran.