Serbian Ambassador to Iran Dragan Todorovic made a guest appearance on Culture Radio programme "Pars Namak", where he talked about the cultural cooperation between the two countries, in particular about literature. Ambassador imparted the fact that eight Serbian literary works had been translated to Persian/Farsi so far and that an agreement had been made to translate the most important works of great Serbian novelists, Ivo Andric and Mesa Selimovic.

As regards the translation of Iranian authors to Serbian, Ambassador stressed that there was a hundred-year-old tradition of translating works of the most renowned Iranian (Persian) poets, such as Hafez, Omar Khayam, Saadi, Rumi, etc. and that more than a hundred books had already been translated from Persian to Serbian. The Ambassador said that there was a strong interest in Serbia to learn Persian, for three reasons.

"Firstly, one of the most famous Serbian poets, Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj, wrote a poem 'On Hafiz's Tomb'. Secondly, there are around 800 words in Serbian which originate from the Persian language. And finally, Iran is a friendly country, and at the same time one of the most important countries in the Middle East region", said the Ambassador.



He also talked about the cooperation between the National Libraries of Serbia and Iran, the participation of the Republic of Serbia as a special guest at the International Book Fair in Tehran, but also about the upcoming Week of Serbian Film which is to be held in three Iranian cities, as well as about the popularization of traditional Serbian and Iranian music.

Following the programme, Ambassador visited Youth Radio which, like Culture Radio, is part of Iranian State Television and Radio Broadcasting network. In talks with the director of Culture Radio Mohammad-Sadeq Rahmanian, a poet, it was noted that cultural exchange best contributed to the connection of people which undoubtedly fostered a high-quality development of all other sectors.