On August 23, Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), China-Iran Friendship Association, and Iran-China Friendship Association held the 13th annual conference of China Iran Friendship Associations and Dialogues between sister provinces/cities of China and Iran online, under the theme of "Future-oriented China-Iran Comprehensive Strategic Partnership: Win-win Cooperation for Common Development". Lin Songtian, President of CPAFFC, Allaedin Boroujerdi, head of Iran-China friendship association, Chang Hua, Chinese ambassador to Iran, and Mohammad Keshavarz-Zadeh, Iranian ambassador to China attended the conference and delivered speeches. Over 60 other participants, including members of the two friendship associations, representatives of the sister provinces/cities, and media reporters also attended the conference online.

Li Yi, Deputy Director General of the Foreign Affairs Office of the People's Government of Beijing Municipality, attended the meeting via video link. He said that Beijing and Tehran, as the capitals of China and Iran, had time-honored friendship. The two cities have carried out a series of exchanges and cooperation in such areas as public health, urban governance and infrastructure construction. They have also firmly supported each other, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics. Going forward, Beijing is willing to deepen cooperation with Tehran and to push for more pragmatic achievements in urban governance, culture and arts, youth exchanges and so on.

Hamidreza Gholamzadeh, International Affairs Deputy of the Municipality of Tehran, said that Tehran attached great importance to developing the relations with China and was willing to deepen its traditional friendship with Beijing. He hoped the two cities could expand cooperation in fields like city development, technology, culture, economy and trade, and improve the bilateral relations and exchanges to jointly respond better to new challenges under the current international circumstances.

Beijing and Tehran officially became sister cities in February 2014. During the conference, representatives of the two cities and other participants had an in-depth exchange of views and reached a broad consensus on the two topics, namely "people-to-people and cultural exchanges" and "sister-city cooperation and common development".

(Image credit: CPAFFC)