Kabul, Tehran ink MoU on judiciary ties

KABUL and Iran have inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in which they pledged to promote bilateral cooperation in judicial and legal affairs and continued interactions to exchange their legal experiences.

The MoU was signed on Sunday during the tree-day visit of Afghanistan’s Chief Justice Abdul Salam Azimi to Tehran, Iran’s judiciary department announced.

Accompanying a delegation, Azimi held meetings with high-ranking Iranian officials to discuss ways of broadening ties between the two countries’ judiciaries.

Azimi and his high-level delegation flew to Iran on Saturday and met with some high level government officials there, including Iran’s justice minister, attorney general and foreign ministry officials.

A spokesman for the Afghan Supreme Court, Mohammad Siddique Zhobal, told Pajhwok Afghan News the MoU would help strengthen judicial cooperation and relations between the two countries.

Afghanistan and Iran have already signed three agreements about five years ago on judicial cooperation, exchange of criminals and prisoners, but the accords were yet to fully enforced due to certain reasons, he said.

The MoU calls for improving the level of judicial and legal relations between the two countries and implementing the judicial cooperation agreements inked before. It also stresses continued interactions between Iran and Afghanistan to exchange their legal experiences.

During Azimi’s visit to Tehran, it was also agreed that the two countries would endorse an agreement for the extradition of criminals.

Welcoming the agreement, the Iranian side announced its readiness to extradite the first group of Afghan prisoners to Afghanistan.

During his meeting with Iranian Justice Minister Morteza Bakhtiari on Sunday, Azimi announced that Kabul was keen to use Tehran’s experiences in judicial affairs.

He said the main goal of his visit to Iran was to pave the ground for more interactions in judiciary affairs. He said legal procedures for the verification of past agreements had now been completes.

myn/ma

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