Iran Unveils One-Year Plan to Expand Tourism Ties With Iraq
The initiative aims to increase annual tourist exchanges between Iran and Iraq to five million visitors for each country while expanding cooperation beyond religious tourism.
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - Iran has unveiled a one-year initiative aimed at expanding tourism exchanges with Iraq, targeting five million visitors annually from each country while broadening cooperation into medical, commercial, cultural and leisure tourism.
On Friday, Reza Salehi Amiri, Iran’s minister of culture and tourism, announced the initiative as part of efforts to increase the scale of tourism exchanges between the neighboring countries.
Salehi Amiri said the plan aims to raise annual tourist flows to five million visitors from each side.
The Iranian minister said the initiative was developed based on a proposal put forward by the Iraqi prime minister during his most recent meeting with the Iranian president.
He said the current level of tourist exchanges between the two countries is already significant, with around 3.6 million Iraqi tourists visiting Iran each year, while approximately 3.5 million Iranian tourists travel to Iraq.
Under the new plan, efforts will not focus exclusively on religious tourism, Salehi Amiri said.
Instead, the two sides will work to diversify tourism opportunities, including developing medical tourism, leisure travel, commercial activities, cultural cooperation and academic exchanges between the two neighboring countries.