Kyrgyz Minister of Science and Education Kanat Sadykov and Iran's Ambassador to Bishkek Ali Najafi called for more educational and scientific cooperation between the two countries. In their Friday meeting, Sadykov underlined the historical and cultural commonalities between the two countries and Iran's scientific progress, and called for more scientific and educational exchanges and close ties between universities and educational centers of the two friendly states. He said that signing a cooperation document between the two countries can be an important step towards increasing the interactions between scientific and educational centers. Najafi, for his part, expressed Iran's readiness to strengthen mutual scientific cooperation with Bishkek. Iran and Kyrgyzstan have recently expanded their bilateral ties and mutual cooperation in different fields. Kyrgyzstan has around six million population, and is a neighbor to China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.