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In an exclusive interview with IRNA in Kuala-Lumpur, BERNAMA Editor in Chief, Datuk Zakaria Abd Wahab said
the Executive Board Meeting (EBM) of OANA in Tehran on Sept 3, 2018 was a very successful one. The meeting has come out with several proposals that can help strengthen OANA as a respectful international and credible news organisation.
'One of the proposals is OANA should have a permanent secretariat. This is important as the permanent secretariat can run a big organisation such as OANA systematically, routinely and in a proper manner. Currently, OANA is seemed to run on an ad-hoc basis and only active when a meeting is going to be held,' said the BERNAMA official.
He added, 'Another important proposal is that OANA should have its own flag. The flag can make OANA known and recognise globally especially when OANA representatives participate in international meetings.'
'The EBM also touched on several other points which could help member countries improve their standing such as providing training for journalists, managing their contribution or funding to OANA, and seeking experts to give talks on relevant subjects to OANA members.'
'The meeting in Tehran also saw OANA members still believing in the alliance as many of them did not hesistate to offer to be host for the coming EBM meetings and OANA assembly such as Vietnam, Bulgaria, and Iran,' opined Zakaria Abd Wahab.
'I would like to thank IRNA for the commendable effort in organising a successful EBM meeting in Tehran. And for the first time the host agency invited delegates individually to their headquarter and discussed bilateral matters. On this matter, I would like to personally congratulate IRNA Managing Director Seyyed Zia Hashemi for taking a pro-active effort in inviting me and my colleague, and other representatives of the participating news agencies at EBM, to his office.'
'We discussed a lot on how to strengthen and improve the cooperation between IRNA and BERNAMA especially on news, photo and the latest news video clips exchange. Malaysians still need a lot of information on IRAN as their knowledge on this respectable Islamic country is currently limited to foreign wires reports which are naturally biased and negative,' said the senior Malaysian journalist.
'Once again, I would like to thank the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and particularly IRNA for being a good host and for their hospitality and warm personnel, and organising a successful EBM. The only slackening is that we did not have time to visit your beautiful country as much as we can,' he concluded.
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