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By Katrice R. Jalbuena, Reporter
Iran’s ambassador to the Philippines said his
country is ready and willing to assist in the development of all
countries—not only in trade and investment but also sharing its
expertise in science and shariah law.
“We are ready to help the Philippines,”
Ambassador Ali Mojtaba Rouzbehani told The Manila Times in a
roundtable interview recently.
He said his marching orders from Iran’s
president is to “expand our relations with the Philippines … any
way I can do it.”
One way is the embassy’s project with the
Philippine Supreme Court to strengthen the local shariah legal
system. Iran is working out an arrangement for shariah experts to
come to the Philippines.
Another project involves organizing cultural
activities, like the showing of Iranian films locally.
Neighbor first
Earlier this week, Iran’s president, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, made a historic trip to Iraq. The two countries fought
an eight-year war that ended in 1988 and claimed as many as a
million Iranian lives and killed up to 400,000 Iraqis.
“They are our friends,” Rouzbehani said,
adding that this was the case even when war ensued. The two
countries share not just a common border but also similarities in
history and culture. Iraq is the site of many holy shrines that the
Iranians love to visit. Many Iranians work or live in Iraq and
vice-versa.
“Throughout Saddam’s reign, through
political embargos and attacks, it was the Iraqi people who
suffered, not him,” he said, referring to Saddam Hussein, the
Iraqi leader who was executed for war crimes. “We tried to help
the Iraqi people by sending aid. We have always felt that the Iraqi
people were our brothers and treated them as such for the sake of
peace and stability in the region,” he said.
“The stability in Iraq is important to us”
and important to the whole Middle-east region, he added.
“We are committed to help maintain peace,
prosperity and stability in our region and in the world,”
Rouzbehani said. “That means we try to have good relations with
everybody.”
Philippine relations
Iran is keen on investing in the Philippines,
Rouzbehani told The Times.
Quoting his president, the envoy said, “He
told me we are ready to come to the Philippines.” One area they
are looking at is the petrochemical industry, but so far, this is
only exploratory.
Rouzbehani’s other priority is to take care of
the Iranians in the country.
Some 1,000 Iranian students are in the
Philippines, many of them studying dentistry. Rouzbehani said they
come here because it is easy to communicate with Filipinos, who are
proficient in English.
Plus, there are about 3,500 other Iranians
permanently living here. They are businessmen married to Filipinas,
like the owner of famous Hossein’s, a Persian restaurant in the
posh shopping district in Fort Bonifacio. The owner actually studied
to be a dentist here, and eventually decided to stay, the envoy
said.
“The Iranians living here are the best
ambassadors to your country,” Rouzbehani said.
He said Iran can also partner with the
Philippines on major infrastructure projects, like roads and dams.
Tourism is another area that can be improved.
Rouzbehani estimates that as many as a million
Iranian tourists travel to Asia yearly, but mainly to Malaysia and
Indonesia.
“This is the problem of your country,” he
said, adding that the “Filipino side is not active” in promoting
Philippine tourism.
As a market for overseas Filipino workers, Iran
is small compared to other Middle-Eastern countries. There are only
about 1,200 Filipino laborers in Iran, working mostly for
petrochemical and geothermal companies.
There are no Filipino domestic helpers in Iran,
because domestic laborers from neighboring Afghanistan—many of
them illegal aliens—accept wages too low for Filipinos to match.
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