Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 14
By Umid Niayesh, Saeed Isayev - Trend:
The first session of the executive committee of the 9th Islamic Inter-Parliamentary Union started in Tehran with the inauguration speech of the Iranian parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, Iranian IRNA news agency reported on Feb. 14.
The executive committee is arranging the agenda of the general conference, which will be held in the presence of parliament speakers of member states.
According to the Advisor of Majlis Speaker in International Affairs Hossein Sheikh-ol-Islam, 47 countries will certainly participate in the conference and 15 countries have expressed their readiness to attend the conference as observers.
Meeting of parliaments' speakers will be held on Feb. 18-19 in Tehran.
Several parliamentary delegations from different Islamic states have arrived in Tehran to participate the meeting. Parliamentary delegations from Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Morocco, Sudan, Uganda, Senegal, and deputy speaker of Chad parliament have arrived in Tehran so far.
The 8th meeting of Islamic Inter-Parliamentary Union was held in Khartoum, capital of Sudan, on January 21-22, 2013. Senior officials of 48 member countries parliaments, including Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani attended the meeting.
The Islamic Inter-Parliamentary Union was established in 1999 based on an initiative by Iran. It seeks to strengthen parliamentary cooperation among Islamic countries in order to solve challenges facing the Islamic world.