By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

Whatever the origins of the capital of Turkmenistan, whether “Ashgabat” is a corruption of the Persian “Eshqabad” (City of Love and Devotion), or is actually “Ashkabad” (City of Ashkan – Founder of ancient Iran’s Parthian Empire in 247 BC), and irrespective of the fact that the whole area was seized from Qajarid Iran by Czarist Russia in 1881, the President of the Islamic Republic was the star attraction at the 15th summit of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO).
Hojjat al-Islam Seyyed Ibrahim Raisi in his speech at the summit suggested that the 10-nation ECO create an internal financial mechanism to boost its efficacy, and that Iran – as the founder-member along with Turkey and Pakistan – is ready to help connect the member states’ fiber optic networks and promote artificial intelligence projects.
He pointed out: “In addition to its unique position in enjoying material features such as a population of half a billion that includes young and skilled manpower, as well as ownership of one-third of the world’s energy resources, the ECO has a privileged identity called Islam.”
All ten ECO members – Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Republics of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan – are Muslim states with a rich history of cultural, religious, social and lingual commonalities.
In the medieval era, Persian was the lingua franca of the whole region which produced scholars and scientists of repute in various fields, thereby contributing significantly to the development of science, technology, culture, and civilization.
Raisi’s emphasis on inter-ECO trade was noted by the media in view of the fact that the abundant natural resources of the vast region spreading from the borders of Europe in the west to those of China and India in the east, could make member states immune from the pressures and illegal sanctions of the US and other western regimes.
There are extensive areas of cooperation among ECO countries, including banking transactions, boosting of road, rail, and air networks, setting up of joint industrial projects, and promotion of tourism.
Moreover, Iran with its extensive coastlines on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman provides the landlocked countries of Central Asia with the safest and most economical connection to the high seas and the international markets.
Among other important issues facing ECO states is security and the need to coordinate policies for confronting the problem of terrorism, whose chief promoter is the US, which has transported to Afghanistan the macabrely murderous takfiri terrorists in thousands, in order to keep that country in perpetual turmoil and to send them across the borders to destabilize neighbouring countries.
Without the least doubt, the regimes in Washington, whether Democrat or Republican, along with the illegal Zionist entity, are the avowed enemies of Islam and Muslim countries, and should never be trusted.
The Iranian president, on the sidelines of the ECO summit, held cordial talks with his counterparts from other member states, including host Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow (Qurban-Quli Berdi-Mohammad), whose country shares a 1,148 km long border with Iran, stretching from the Caspian Sea to Afghanistan.
ECO has all the potential to become one of the powerful economic and political blocs of the world, if heads of member state strive to remove distrust by adopting independent and progressive policies without any dependence on the exploitative west.