Minister of Culture and Antiquities: We are keen to strengthen our relations with the al-Abbas's (p) Holy Shrine.

A delegation from the al-Abbas's (p) Holy Shrine visited the Iraqi Minister of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities; Dr. Abdul Amir Al-Hamadani in his office in Baghdad. The two sides stressed the importance of enhancing joint cooperation between the Holy Shrine and the Ministry in the field of developing manuscripts and documents conservation, as well as the industry of films and documentaries.

The delegation of the al-Abbas's (p) holy shrine included the members of its board of directors, Dr. Abbas Rasheed Al-Moussawi, the President of the al-Kafeel University; Dr. Nawras al-Dahhan, in addition to the film director Azhar Khamis from the al-Kafeel Center of production and artistic distribution. During the meeting the Minister stressed on the perpetuation of the future cooperation in the field of digital archiving of masters and doctoral dissertations and theses after reviewing the legal status of the intellectual property of the authors. Dr. Al-Hamadani was also briefed in this visit about the activity of documentary and film unit at the al-Abbas's (p) holy shrine.

Dr. Al-Hamadani called on the delegation of the al-Abbas's (p) holy shrine to study the implementation of the digitization project on the documents of the royal and republican covenants, which are kept in the ministry's house of books and documents.

In the course of the visit, the delegation presented a documented document of the antiquities confiscated by the previous regime from the holy shrines in 1991 without any legal basis. As the ministry offered to cooperate in this field during the visit of Dr. Al-Hamadani to the holy shrines of Imam al-Hussayn and al-Abbas (peace be upon both of them) in province of Karbala during last week.

It is worth mentioning that this visit comes in response to the visit of the Minister of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities, Dr. Abdul Amir Al-Hamadani, to the al-Abbas's (p) holy shrine a few days ago. The aim of these visits is to promote joint cooperation between the two sides, serving the Iraqi culture and the public interest.