On Wednesday, December 23, 2020, the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS) held an online roundtable discussion on "Iran and Afghan State Cultural Policy towards Shared Cultural Heritage". Ghofran Badakhshani, researcher at Leiden University in the Netherlands; Fariba Pajooh, journalist and lecturer at Wayne State University, Michigan, US; Siamak Heravi, writer and journalist; and Dr. Alam Saleh, lecturer in Iranian Studies at Australian National University were the speakers of the program. The event was moderated by Aziz Hakimi, writer and journalist.

Dr. Alam Saleh in his opening speech said that countries pay to have soft power and countries like Afghanistan and Iran with many cultural commonalities are already equipped with such tools of power. He added that countries, especially Iran and Afghanistan, should not pursue their political goals through culture and that elites can play an effective yet dangerous role in this regard. According to Saleh, the Persian civilization has also influenced both India and Pakistan.

Ghofran Badakhshani stated that nationalism and political borders have weakened the cultural dialogue between Afghanistan and Iran and this needs to be strengthened. He said that in order to revive the historical and civilizational identity of this area, we must go beyond the identity that is intertwined with politics because it cannot be a fundamental solution. Cultural Iran is one of those politicized identities, but Persian is an identity that can be accepted by all. He added that the Afghan government has a special program in the field of language culture, but no program in the Persian language.

Fariba Pajooh said that culture, especially the Persian language, has the power to cross political boundaries and educators should not get involved in small issues because the continuation of such actions and behaviors will be in the interest of politics and politicians. She said that effective cultural exchange between Iran and Afghanistan has not been formed yet and there are various reasons for this. First, Iranian intellectuals have been more pro-Western in recent decades, and second, Afghanistan has been embroiled in war and conflict for decades. She added that Iranophobia exists in Afghanistan and is even fueled by some Westernized Afghan cultural figures and that such views are detrimental to relations between nations.

In his speech, Siamak Heravi said that the cultural commonalities of Afghanistan and Iran are inseparable. Therefore, efforts should be made to improve the cultural situation, and one of the ways can be extensive relations between the cultural figures of the two countries. He also added that the Afghan government does not have a clear policy in the field of culture, and in addition to cultural productions, Afghan cultural figures are fewer than in Iran, and most Afghans use Iranian books. So, more work needs to be done to strengthen the culture, he said.