Najafi was presented a plaque by the Organizing Committee of the Eurasian Economic Union Forum on Saturday, on the eve of an EAEU council summit in a ceremony at the union's headquarters in Saint Petersburg.

The plague is jointly signed by Bakytzhan Sagintayev, Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission and Natalia Petkevitch, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Belarus, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the union this year.  

The EAEU is an intergovernmental economic union comprising Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia, with Iran currently holding observer status in the union, alongside Uzbekistan and Cuba.

Iran became an observer member of the EAEU in 2024 and signed the Free Trade Agreement, which, after going through legal procedures in the contracting countries, came into effect earlier this year, with parties eliminating customs tariffs on 87 percent of goods.

As an official information partner, IRNA participated and extensively covered the last two Eurasian Economic Forums held in Yerevan in 2024 and Minsk in 2025, respectively.