On Tuesday, November 30, Prof. Mohammad Reza Mokhber Dezfouli, president of the Academy of Sciences of IR Iran (IAS) met with Prof. Alikber Alikberov, director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). The attendees of the meeting included Prof. Ali Akbar Salehi, vice president for research of the Academy, Dr. Zahra Nazem Bokaei, president of Alzahra University, Prof. Mohammad Reza Asari, vice president of Alzahra University and Prof. Kourosh Vahdati, director of the International Relations Office of the Academy.
At first, Prof. Mokhber Dezfouli welcomed Prof. Alikberov. Then, Prof. Alikberov, expressed his happiness to be in Iran. He stated that the meetings and conferences in the past three days have been indicative of the appropriate activities and interactions between the two countries. Currently, he mentioned the study of ancient Iran as the favorite area for cooperation between the two sides and announced that agreements have been reached in this field.
Afterwards, Prof. Mokhber Dezfouli said that the IAS can have cooperation with the RAS, especially in civilization areas. He added that in the past, Alzahra University was active in the fields of culture and civilization. “We can cooperate in these fields, especially since Russia has a lot of common culture with us in terms of historical background because Russia is much more compatible with Eastern culture than Western culture.”
Prof. Alikberov declared that: “In this regard, we have invited scientists and scholars from the countries of Iran, Turkey, and Russia as the three great empires of the past, to hold a conference entitled “The Route of Iran, Peter the Great,” which refers to the 300 years of history. Many challenges were raised there. There is a readiness to financially support this project and to define the study projects of the Caucasus region through the intersection of the three governments of Iran, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire and the events that happened there as a joint project.”
Prof. Salehi remarked that Russian archaeologists worked relatively well in Iran in the past and noted: “We have a lot of common ancient history with Russia. For example, there are more or less materials about the migration of Aryans from Siberia and North Siberia, but if we can jointly prepare an encyclopedia on cultural heritage and archeology with the help of our academies, it would be very useful.”
Then Prof. Mokhber Dezfouli continued by expressing that many signs of a serious historical common line can be seen: “If you have authority, we can define this as a joint project. We can conclude a memorandum, and based on that, a joint specialized scientific working group will be formed from the IAS and the RAS to launch this project.”
At the end, Prof. Mokhber Dezfouli also stated that there are other subjects besides the cultural and civilizational issues that Prof. Salehi raised, which are very good, and added, “Mr. Fursenko raised four priority issues of Russia in his meeting with me two months ago: Food security, health and healthcare, energy and transportation. They had a fifth topic that they were working on in the field of ultra-advanced technological activities. Apparently, these five axes are the guidelines that Mr. Putin approved in the Russian Science Foundation. For this reason, I suggest that you can create the preliminaries for this consensus and coordination in the philosophical and cultural sector and the technology and science sector to facilitate the cooperation.”
