TEHRAN — The commander of the Iranian Navy has traveled to France at the invitation of his French counterpart to attend the 8th summit of naval commanders, IRNA reported on Monday.

Regarding the objectives of the trip, Admiral Shahram Irani, "The focus of the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) Summit is on security of the Indian Ocean, which the littoral states of the ocean are working on in various dimensions, especially in the fight against piracy, maritime safety and assistance to the ships in emergency," IRNA reported on Monday.

The commander of the Navy stated that the Islamic Republic has chaired the IONS summit for two years and is currently chairing the IONS Security Committee.

"We have attended this summit with two goals; first, we present a report on the activities of the Security Committee and future plans, including planning for holding naval exercises with the collaboration of the Indian Ocean states, and we have written a book that will be the common language for conducting operations at sea."

Elsewhere in his remarks, Admiral Irani said Iran has prepared a document that it will present to the commanders of the navies of the Indian Ocean littoral states during the summit in France.

The high-ranking military official noted, "What we will pursue on the sidelines of the IONS summit will be holding bilateral, trilateral and multilateral meetings with the highest priority to improve the level of maritime relations."

Rear Admiral Irani described the “language of the sea” as the common language of all countries and said, "Security and peace are dictated by the sea to the world and all countries can stand together without intermediaries."

The Iranian admiral pointed out that the Islamic Republic had proven to the world during the last decade that it had the ability to restore security in the northern Indian Ocean with great authority.

The commander went on to say that this strategic activity of the Iranian Navy has always been taken into account by international organizations. 

"We were tasked with having a special presence in the fight against maritime terrorism which is underway with authority."