Anwar-ul Haq Ahady, Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, visited our university together with Dr. İsmail Emrah Karayel, AK Party Kayseri Deputy, and got information regarding the vaccine candidate developed against Covid-19. The Minister first visited our Rector and, during the visit, exchanged ideas on possible collaborations between Erciyes University and Afghan government.

Expressing his appreciation for the Minister’s visit, our Rector gave information to the Minister about our University. Stating that they are ready for all kinds of collaboration between Afghanistan, our Rector said: “There are nearly over 3,000 international students from 113 different countries in our university. Among them, 135 are from Afghanistan. We are especially pleased to welcome you at our university. Afghanistan and Turkey are brother countries. When Turkey has grief, Afghanistan is always on its side; or when Afghanistan has grief, Turkey has always been on its side. As Erciyes University, we would like to cooperate with Afghanistan in many fields such as student exchange especially in research. As the administration of Erciyes University, I would like to state that we always stand by our Afghan students and academic staff members”.

Expressing his pleasure in visiting Kayseri, the Minister thanked our Rector for his hospitality. The Minister continued his words: “I am happy to visit Erciyes University. The students studying at Erciyes University and in Turkey have education of high quality. Kayseri is a good city not only in commerce but also in every field. I will continue to visit Kayseri. Our collaboration with Kayseri will also continue. We are ready to cooperate in all areas. Qualified students study at Erciyes University. I hope we will have a collaboration with Erciyes University”.

After the visit of Rector’s Office, the Minister and the Deputy visited together with our Rector the clinic in the Good Clinical Practice and Research Center (IKUM), where vaccine candidate developed against Covid-19 is administered to the volunteers.

During this visit, the Minister received information from Prof. Dr. Aykut Özdarendeli, Manager of the Vaccine Research and Development Center, and Prof. Dr. Zafer Sezer, IKUM Manager, about the current situation in the vaccine studies and in volunteer practices.