Presidents of six American universities will visit Iran later this month at the invitation of Tehran's Sharif University of Technology, media reports said.

Organized by the Association of American Universities (AAU), the delegation plans to meet with the university faculty and students in Tehran to discuss topics of common interest to the two countries and encourage academic exchange, particularly in sciences.
Barry Toiv, vice president of public affairs for the AAU, said that while in Iran, the delegation members hope to foster ""academic exchange by meeting with the president and the faculty and holding an open forum with students.""
Scientists have visited Iran or Iranian scientists have visited their campuses, he said. In 2004, Larry Vanderhoef, president of University of California at Davis, led a delegation to Iran, where he met with the president of Sharif University of Technology.
The American universities selected to participate in this month's exchange previously made academic exchanges with Iranian colleges through the National Academies, he added.
The institutions represented by the delegation include the University of California at Davis, the University of Florida, the University of Maryland at College Park and Carnegie Mellon, Cornell and Rice universities.
The snapping of bilateral ties between the two countries in 1979 created obstacles to academic exchange over the years, but representatives from both sides are now aiming to mend the fences.
(Source: RTTNews)