DUSHANBE, February 20, Asia-Plus — Iranian Ambassador to Tajikistan Ali-Asghar Sherdoust told a press conference in Dushanbe on February 19 that work on the establishment of a joint Persian-language TV channel will start in the near future.
“Recently, we asked President Rahmon to appoint Tajik representative to be engaged in this work,” the Iranian ambassador said.
We will recall that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed to launch the joint TV channel during his visit to Tajikistan in July 2006. According to him, the joint TV channel could broadcast on the territories of Iran, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. This joint television will be dedicated to facilitate dissemination of culture of the Persian-speaking countries, he said.
According to Mr. Sherdoust, the issue of opening of headquarters of this TV channel is still under consideration. “Most likely, it will be located in any fourth country,” he said, noting that it cannot be ruled out that the joint TV channel’s headquarters would be located in one of European countries.
He added that it is time for the tree countries [Afghanistan, Iran and Tajikistan] to start an active work on opening the TV channel’s offices in Tehran, Dushanbe and Kabul.
He said that Iran also comes out for establishing a joint Persian-language newspaper. “We hope that Tajikistan and Afghanistan will support this initiative,” Sherdoust said, adding that Iran intends to organize the delivery of Iran’s leading print media to Tajikistan. “We know that there is demand for these publications in your country, and price of one newspaper will not be higher than 30 dirams,” the ambassador said.
He said that he would also take efforts to promote expansion of cooperation between Tajik and Iranian media. “In future, we intend to create conditions for Tajik journalists to visit Iran more frequently, and on return, they would write about the life of modern Iran,” said Sherdoust, “Besides, we plan to support improvement of professionalism of Tajik journalists through organizing training courses for them in Iran.”
