By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

President Seyyed Ibrahim Raisi has a busy schedule, meeting his counterparts from various parts of the globe, discussing bilateral, regional, and international issues with them, and inking important accords of cooperation, thanks to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s flourishing ties with the community of world nations.
Back in Tehran from a 5-day trip to the three Latin American states of Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba – following his hosting of the Sultan of Oman and his own visits to Indonesia and before that to Syria – his guest on Sunday in Tehran was President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan.
The two held cordial talks on mutual issues of significance and signed ten agreements of cooperation in various fields, including industry, agriculture, culture, technology, pharmacology, trade, and the transit sector.
Later in the day Mirziyoyev was granted an audience by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, for exchange of views on a wide variety of topics pertaining to the interests of the two countries.
Iran and Uzbekistan, along with the four other landlocked Central Asian Muslim republics of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kirgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, are members of the 10-nation Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) – which includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Caucasus republic of Azerbaijan, and Turkiye – and share many commonalities rooted in history, such as religion, culture, language, arts and architecture.
The first recorded settlers in what is now Uzbekistan were Eastern Iranian nomads, known as Scythians, who founded kingdoms in Khwarazm, Bactria, and Sogdia in the 8th-6th centuries BC, as well as Ferghana and Margiana in the 3rd century BC-6th century AD. The area was part of the Persian Achaemenid Empire and, after a brief period of Macedonian rule, was ruled by the Iranian Parthian Empire followed by the Sasanian Empire, until the Muslim conquest of Persia in the seventh century and Islamization of the whole region.
As a matter of fact, modern Persian in the Arabic script was born over a thousand years ago in the cities of Samarqand and Bukhara, the capital of the Persian Samanid Muslim Dynasty which ruled Uzbekistan and the rest of Central Asia, along with Khorasan and Afghanistan, raising Persian prose and poetry to new heights which continues till this day.
The Turkic Timurids during their rule in the 14th-15th century promoted Persian literature and built monuments that still stand to this day, attracting tourists from around the world to Uzbekistan which boasts some of the finest specimens of Islamic-Iranian art and architecture.
The Uzbek people who took over the area in the 16th century continued this trend, using Persian as the court language, patronizing Persian poets and scholars, and contributing to the flowering of arts and miniature paintings.
In the early 19th century Czarist Russia gradually occupied Central Asia and the seven decades of Soviet communist rule that followed, although it forcibly changed the Perso-Arabic script of the Uzbeki and other local Turkic languages, it failed to deprive the people of their religion and rich culture.
Following independence in 1991, the Central Asia peoples revived their identities and have since established flourishing trade and cultural ties with Iran.
Last week, Iran and Uzbekistan, along with Turkmenistan and Russia reached an agreement at the 26th annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), to facilitate the transit of goods and fuel, and to improve maritime cooperation.
The agreement presided over by Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrdad Bazrpash, also discussed maritime cooperation, especially via the Iranian ports on the Caspian Sea and thence to the international waters through the ports of Bandar Abbas (Persian Gulf) and Chabahar (Gulf of Oman).
To sum up, Iran and Uzbekistan, as members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), along with the other Central Asia states, as well as Russia, China, and India, have bright prospects of cooperation for smooth flow of trade and techno-scientific development, safe and secure from the hegemonic policies of the US.