European Parliament Delegation Due in Tehran on Friday
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – An eight-member delegation from the European Parliament (EP) is scheduled to arrive in Tehran on Friday, an adviser to Iran's parliament speaker said on Monday.
“The EP delegation headed by Tarja Cronberg from Finland, will arrive in Tehran on Friday, December 13,” Hossein Sheikholeslam, the international affairs adviser of parliament speaker told Tasnim.
He added that the Head of the Iranian Parliament’s Research Center Kazem Jalali has invited the EP delegation to Iran for a five-day visit.
The delegation which is composed of Tarja Cronberg from Finland, Cornelia Ernst from Germany, Marietje Schaake from the Netherlands among others, will have meetings with the Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, Chairman of National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi, and some Iranian politicians.
Other members of European Parliament's Iran Delegation who have expressed interest in joining the trip include Isabelle Durant from Belgium, Josef Weidenholzer from Austria, Paweł Zalewski from Poland, Dimitrios Droutsas and Niki Tzavela from Greece and Pavel Poc from Czech Republic.
The European Parliament's governing body had initially last month authorized a 10-member delegation to travel to Iran from December 12 to 17.
The new attempt could be the last for this term as there's little space left in the parliamentary calendar before the European elections in spring 2014.
Meanwhile, Sheikholeslam said on Sunday that a French parliamentary delegation is to pay a visit to Iran on December 13 in an effort to discuss the expansion of Tehran-Paris relations with senior Iranian lawmakers.
A Croatian parliamentary delegation will also arrive in Tehran on December 16 to hold talks with senior Iranian politicians and legislators, including Larijani and Boroujerdi, over the promotion of Tehran-Zagreb parliamentary ties.
A five-member delegation from the EP, headed by Hannes Swoboda visited Iran in October and met with many of the country's officials.
They held separate meetings with the country’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, as well as Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the 28-member European Union (EU), which together with the Council of the European Union and the European Commission, exercises the legislative function of the EU.
The parliament is currently composed of 766 members, who have been directly elected every five years by universal suffrage since 1979.
