Iran’s Islamic Azad University to Open Branch in Iraq

On the occasion of the new academic year, which starts officially in Iran on September 24, a meeting was held with the aim of discussing ways to broaden cooperation with Iraq through science diplomacy.

The IAU president Mohammad-Mehdi Tehranchi, the Iranian Ambassador to Iraq Mohammad-Kazem Al Sadeq, and the Iranian Cultural Attaché in Iraq Gholamreza Abazari explored avenues of academic cooperation with Iraq.

During the meeting, Tehranchi touched on the status of the Islamic Azad University inside and outside the country, saying that establishing a branch in Iraq is of high importance.

Al Sadeq, for his part, appreciated the IAU for making efforts in line with the goal of science diplomacy.

Abazari also said that a large number of Iraqi students in Iran are studying at the Islamic Azad University.

Science diplomacy is the use of scientific collaborations among nations to address common problems and build constructive international partnerships.

It is a form of new diplomacy and has become an umbrella term to describe a number of formal or informal technical, research-based, academic, or engineering exchanges, within the general field of international relations.

The Islamic Azad University is the third-largest university in the world as far as the enrolment numbers display. It is a non-governmental, nonprofit Iranian higher education provider that has been established in 1982.

To date, some five million students have graduated from the IAU, and currently, 1.7 million students are studying at the university branches.

Over three and a half decades, IAU has ramified into more than 400 branches throughout Iran and four branches abroad, namely in Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, and England.

In July, Iranian Deputy Science Minister Vahid Haddadi-Asl said Iran puts priority on increasing academic cooperation with Iraq.

He made the remarks in a meeting with Iraqi Ambassador to Tehran Naseer Abdul Mohsen Abdullah.

Around 57,000 foreign nationals from 133 countries are studying in Iranian universities, 30,000 of whom are studying in universities affiliated with the Ministry of Science, while 25,000 others are studying at the Islamic Azad University and about 2,000 in medical universities.

Meanwhile, some 527,000 foreign students are studying in Iranian schools, the majority are Afghans and the rest are from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iraq, and other countries, the deputy education minister Abolfazl Kamali said in May.

4155/g