ANKARA - Abdollah Naseri Taheri, the President of Iranian official news agency IRNA, visited on Monday Anadolu Agency (A.A) Director General and Executive Board Chairman Hilmi Bengi at A.A Headquarters in Ankara, Turkey.
During the meeting, Bengi said that official news agencies of two neighbor countries had very good relations and a good cooperation in news.
Bengi expressed belief that relations between two agencies would further improve in coming days and said, ''news is really a very important phenomenon. Accurate news is more important than everything. It is the national news agencies which report accurate news.''
Inaccurate news could harm positive relations between two countries, Bengi stated.
Bengi emphasized that inaccurate and intentional news could harm world peace.
''Our relations with IRNA has always had positive contributions to accurate reporting and protected us from inaccurate or different reporting of regional news,'' Bengi said.
Offering his condolences over those who lost their lives in the earthquake which had rocked Iran's Bam city on December 26, 2003, Bengi said that A.A's news and photographs related with Bam earthquake had great place in the world press.
An earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale hit Bam city of Iran at 5:28 a.m. Iranian time on December 26, 2003. Thousands of people lost their lives and thousands others were wounded since the quake hit the city when most of the people were in bed.
Bengi expressed displeasure with reporting bad news and war news and said that they wanted to report good news.
A.A Director General Bengi added, ''we want war in our region to be replaced with peace and tranquility as soon as possible.''
Naseri, in his part, said that two news agencies had very good relations and thanked A.A for its objective and accurate reporting of news regarding Iran and the other regional countries.
Press organs of the two countries did not know well about each other despite their efforts, Naseri noted.
Naseri wished that Turkish and Iranian journalists and writers would pay more reciprocal visits.
Bengi later had lunch with Naseri and accompanying delegation.
A.A Deputy Director General Elvan Baransel and Iranian Counselor to Turkey Bijen Izedi were also in attendance during the meeting and lunch between Bengi and Naseri.
(BRC-AÖ) 17.05.2004