Photo: Courtesy of National Cultural Heritage Administration

China and Iran on Saturday signed a cooperation agreement on Asian cultural heritage protection during an online workshop, the first bilateral agreement between the cultural heritage authorities in the two countries in the last decade.

According to the agreement, the two countries will carry out all-round cooperation in joint archaeology, preservation and restoration of cultural property, conservation, management, and sustainable development of world cultural heritage sites, exchange ideas for exhibitions and preservation technology and the prevention of trafficking of cultural property, Li Qun, head of China's National Cultural Heritage Administration, said at the conference.

"This joint statement is the first bilateral document signed by the cultural heritage authorities of the two countries in the past ten years, marking that the two countries' cultural heritage cooperation has entered a new stage of development and is of milestone significance for the promotion of the Belt and Road Initiative," said Li. 

Mohammad Hassan Talebian, Deputy Minister for Cultural Heritage, Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts in Iran, also expressed great willingness to promote the development of Asian Cultural heritage with China.

Mohammad Keshavarzzadeh, the Iranian Ambassador to China, also attended the event in Beijing.

Global Times