“Iran will always remain a reliable route for the transit of goods of the region’s countries, including Uzbekistan,” President Hassan Rouhani said in a meeting with his Uzbek counterpart Islam Karimov on Thursday.
The two presidents met in Tajikistan’s capital city of Dushanbe, where senior officials from other regional states have gathered to attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Elsewhere in the meeting, Rouhani underlined that Uzbekistan has a “significant position” in Iran’s foreign policy, stressing that Tehran and Tashkent could enhance ties in light of their “abundant economic capacities.”
Karimov, for his part, voiced the Central Asian country’s preparedness to promote economic cooperation with Iran.
He also proposed that the two countries could form a joint group to follow up the previous agreements between Tehran and Tashkent and put them into practice speedily.
President Rouhani traveled to Tajikistan for a three-day visit on Wednesday to participate at the SCO summit.
The SCO is an intergovernmental organization that was founded in 2001 in Shanghai by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
Iran, along with four other countries, holds observer status in the organization.