Kazinform and IRNA news agencies hold joint online conference
The online conference brought together heads and reps of the international relations departments of the two new agencies, correspondents of Kazinform News Agency and El.kz web portal, as well as editors of the IRNA News Agency.
«This is our first experience in hosting the thematic conferences, but we hope that such events will be held even more actively and will show the fruitful results. We exchange the ideas and experience on how IRNA and Kazinform can influence the development of cultural relations between the two nations», said Zaman Rezakhani, Director of International Relations Department of IRNA News Agency.
The participants went on to discuss the role of cultural relations and mass media in the society, focusing on cooperation between the news agencies.
«Since the establishment of bilateral cooperation IRNA and Kazinform news agencies have been working together and have productive results in cooperation. The news agencies have conducted productive negotiations and done mutual projects and covered news both in Kazakhstan and Iran. For instance, one year ago a joint photo exhibition was organized in the city of Nur-Sultan at the initiative of the Embassy of Iran in Kazakhstan. In our turn, we covered the event on the website of our news agency», Kazinform news agency correspondent Akbota Kuzekbai said.
As for the cultural heritage, the participants of the conference touched upon the theme of hosting and covering the anniversary events in honor of the 175th anniversary of the famous Kazakh poet Abai, the 1150th anniversary of the thinker Abu Nasr al-Farabi and also debated the role of the classic author of Persian literature Ferdowsi.
«This year on the occasion of the 175th anniversary, Abai’s works have been translated into a number of foreign languages, including Uzbek, Czech, Kyrgyz, Armenian, Ukrainian and more. As a sign of strengthening the cultural ties between Iran and Kazakhstan, the book 'Abai's Works and Thoughts' was published for the first time in Iran. Moreover, it is worthy to note that this year a number of events devoted to Abai are held under the aegis of such international organizations as UNESCO and TURKSOY», Malika Mursalimova, Manager of the International Relations Department of Kazinform News Agency, pointed out.
«We realized that the words of Abai are still necessary and relevant in our lives. We received spiritual education through his moral and words of wisdom. Thanks to them, we have tried to improve ourselves, built a human character and become a better version of ourselves. This is how the poet influenced people» El.kz web portal correspondent Aliya Kulmagambetova noted.
Editor-in-chief of IRNA New Agency Vahideh Dindari and Editor of the Desk for Cultural News (IRNA Persian) Mansoureh Shooshtari continued by talking about the important role the cultural ties between Iran and Kazakhstan play and how cooperation of the two countries can be strengthened further.
«Everybody knows that Kazakhstan and Iran share a very ancient culture and we share common interests. When we are looking to the culture and traditions, we share many cultural events», Vahideh Dindari emphasized.
Zaman Rezakhani added that two articles dedicated to the poet Abai had been published on the website of IRNA News Agency recently.
In her turn, expressing her gratitude to the colleagues from Iran, Head of the International Relations Department of Kazinform International News Agency Togzhan Yessenbayeva, suggested several directions in which the sides can possibly expanding the bilateral cooperation.
«We highly appreciate that IRNA has actively participated in several photo exhibitions and online photo galleries organized by Kazinform News Agency. We have exchanged ideas, practices. IRNA and Kazinform have also promoted cooperation within the Organization of Asia and Pacific News Agencies (OANA). In 2018, IRNA held OANA EBM. The main theme of our video conference is how IRNA and Kazinform can help the two nations of Iran and Kazakhstan know more about each other’s culture as well as their common cultural heritage», Togzhan Yessenbayeva noted.
During the online conference, Kazinform International News Agency also made a presentation of its ideas on how to develop the bilateral cooperation further.
«Since March 2020, Kazinform has 9 main web portals and three of them cover cultural projects. We have a few suggestions for our mutual collaboration in the future. It is important to organize online photo exhibition on the basis of Kazinform and IRNA websites, organize online and offline discussion meetings; publish the collection of articles on the specific cultural event and jubilee of the named personality in English by IRNA and Kazinform media specialists; start series of podcasts on cultural relations between the people of Iran and Kazakhstan; organize competition of essays among Kazakh and Iranian journalists in English», Ms Yessenbayeva added.
It should be noted that Kazinform News Agency currently cooperates with 46 news agencies in the world.
IRNA is the state news agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Kazinform and IRNA signed the memorandum of cooperation in 2017.