Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has hailed the elections in Kyrgyzstan, expressing hope that a popular government will soon be formed in the country, Press TV reported.
Mottaki held talks with his Kyrgyz counterpart Ruslan Kazakbaev on Friday at a meeting in Bishkek, which was also attended by the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) chief Mohammad Yahya Maroofi of Afghanistan, Iran's foreign ministry said in a statement.
During the meeting, Mottaki expressed satisfaction that the unrest in the Central Asian nation led to high-turnout general elections and expressed hope that the country's leaders would soon form an inclusive, popular government.
Kyrgyzstan underwent a revolution in April, followed by an attempted counter-coup in May. More than 400 people lost their lives in a brutal ethnic conflict in the south in June.
The Iranian foreign minister welcomed an aid package symbolically conferred to Kyrgyzstan by the ECO secretariat on Friday and called on the member states to separately contribute to the country's development.
Kazakbaev, for his turn, thanked Mottaki, whose country heads ECO's Council of Permanent Representatives, and described the Iranian minister's visit to his country as significant.
He said his country was prepared for active participation in commercial and economic activities under the organization, adding that Kyrgyz officials would readily attend the upcoming ECO summit in Istanbul, Turkey.
The Economic Cooperation Organization is an intergovernmental regional organization established in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey for the purpose of promoting economic, technical and cultural cooperation among member states.
ECO was expanded in 1992 to include seven new members, namely Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.