This morning, at the second day of the ITU Telecom World’s Exhibition in Busan, Republic of Korea, at the sidelines of the Ministerial Roundtable of the ITU member nations, Mr. Eng. Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, the Minister of Communication and Information Technology of the I.R. of Iran, met with the Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Mr. Houlin Zhao, to discuss issues such as the membership of top five Iranian universities in ITU, consultancy facilities for revising communication service tariffs, and follow up on the removal of implemented bans on Iranian operators by GSMA authority and Iranian apps in the App Store.
The Public Relation department reports that in this meeting, Azari Jahromi praised Mr. Zhao’s achievements in his term of service, highlighting topics for mutual cooperation and officially invited him to visit Iran to get a firsthand look at the progresses made in the communication and information technology sector.
Azari Jahromi asked the Secretary General for the membership of the top five Iranian universities in the ITU, adding that: “Iran’s academic capacity is ready to play a decisive role in global communications.”
Eng. Jahromi also referred to the plans for revising the structure of internet tariffing model in Iran, aimed at two and a half fold increase in the telecommunication market of the country, as stipulated in the 6th development plan of Iran, and requested Mr. Zhao to dispatch expert consultants in this area to Iran within a one month period.
The ICT Minister continued by mentioning the behavior of the Global System Mobile Association (GSMA) in canceling the membership of Iranian operators from this association following the non-issuance of US Treasury’s OFAC License and the attitude of Apple Company toward Iranian software programmers, asking ITU’s Secretary General to pursue these matters.
In his turn, Houlin Zhao, the Secretary General of ITU, congratulated Eng. Azari Jahromi on his appointment as the new ICT Minister, expressing his pleasure on the attendance of the Iranian Minister in this year’s forum and exhibition, and welcomed the subject of the top 5 Iranian universities membership in the ITU, stating that: “Within this next month, specialists will be chosen and dispatched who are expert in providing consultancy services for revising the structure of communication tariffing model in Iran.”
He also criticized GSMA’s recent behavior, stressing that, “I will do my utmost to amend this behavior, and I shall also pursue the removal of Iranian apps from App Store via appropriate channels.”