The newly appointed Peshawar based Consul General of the Iran Mohammad Eghbal Ali Asgari on Tuesday offered co-operation to Pakistan in skill development of the engineering services and auto mobile spare parts.
"Iran has achieved successes in engineering services and auto spare parts and wants to share it with whole of Pakistan in general and people of Frontier province in particular," he told the journalists during an Iftar dinner hosted by him.
He said Pakistan and Iran are two brotherly Muslim neighbour countries which have deep rooted links due to their strong religious, cultural, historic and linguistic bonds and the geo-political incidents of the recent past have further brought closer the two states.
He called for further cementing the bonds of friendship and amity. Pakistan was the first country, which officially recognised the Iranian Revolution while Iran was also the first state that had officially recognised Pakistan after its independence. He argued that if big powers could unite then why Pakistan and Iran could not sit together. He was highly appreciative of the state of inter faith harmony in Pakistan.
Pakistan and Iran, he said, have close understanding at every world forum including the ECO, UNO, OIC. He said, "We should compliment each other viewpoints like the foes that employ the same against us." Enhanced Pak-Iran relations are in the best interest of the region, he added.
Muhammad Eghbal Ali Asghari said Iran nuclear programme is purely for peaceful purposes and it has no connection whatsoever with Pakistan or North Korea.
"We are pursuing our own nuclear programme to meet our energy requirement to develop our scientific, agriculture and electricity base." In his maiden press talks at an Iftar/Dinner he gave to the local journalists here at his residence, the Iranian diplomat said in clear terms that Iran's nuclear programme was indigenous which has been prepared by its young scientists after their laborious day and night work.
He said Iran has signed the NPT and fully abide by its rules and regulations. Iran has opened up its nuclear installations to the IAEA Inspection teams and up till now 2000 inspections have been carried by the IAEA teams who in their reports had mentioned nothing that pertained to preparation of atomic weapons. "We are sovereign state and we have right to develop our nuclear programme for technological development", he said, adding, Iran will never join race for atomic weapons.
The Iranian diplomat debunked the rumours that Iran supported the Hizbullah against Israel in the recent war on Lebanon. "We never provided any financial or material support to Hizbullah except lending moral and diplomatic support to them", he maintained.The Iranian diplomat was appreciative of the NAM for supporting Iran's stance in the IAEA. Member countries of the NAM are mostly belonged to third world and are victims of the harsh policies of the imperialist forces.