DAMASCUS Iranian Minister of Agricultural Jihad Mahmoud Hojjati arrived here Friday evening for a four-day official visit. Hojjati, whose is here on the invitation of his Syrian counterpart Mouriddin Mina, was welcomed at the airport by a number Syrian officials. During his stay in Damascus, the Iranian minister is to discuss avenues for bolstering Tehran-Damascus bilateral cooperation, particularly in the field of agriculture. Both sides will also look into the possibilities of establishing a joint agricultural committee for Iran to supply Syria with modern irrigation equipment. Hojjati is slated to meet the director-general of the Syrian International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) Adel al-Beltagy to discuss ways of promoting Iran-ICARDA educational and technical cooperation. ICARDA is an international entity affiliated to the World Bank. It currently has joint cooperation accords with 30 world countries including the Islamic Republic of Iran which aim to help these countries produce skilled manpower as well as high-yielding agricultural products. Meanwhile, the Syrian minister of agriculture and agrarian reform told IRNA that his country is very much interested in an expansion of Iran-Syria bilateral relations.

Expressing his satisfaction with the current visit to Damascus of his Iranian counterpart, he stressed the importance of agreements already reached between the two states in the area of agriculture. He further voiced Syria's readiness to utilize Iranian expertise in the areas of training skilled manpower and use of modern irrigation methods.