Sometimes Persian-language scholars need Tajikistan

Extent of the Persian language. Tajikistan is the northeast extent of the language, and is a relatively safe and politically neutral country compared to Afghanistan and Iran.

Interesting bit of information I noticed in this article here:

"Prior to the Iranian revolution in 1979, a very high percentage of the faculty at Iranian universities was educated in the United States; since that time, and especially since 9/11, that number has declined dramatically," Berdahl said in the AAU press release.

"We believe it is important to maintain and renew academic ties between our two countries as a means of laying the groundwork for greater understanding and rebuilding what was once a very healthy collaboration in science and higher education.

Additionally, Erica Ehrenberg, executive director of the American Institute for Iranian Studies, said, "In the last few years, it has been very difficult to obtain visas both ways."

She cited that a Persian language workshop her organization sponsors had to be moved to Tajikistan in 2005 because of trouble obtaining visas to Iran.

This is interesting because I've often wondered about the role of Tajikistan in the Persian language - whether for one example it's used as a place to learn the language by people that are from Israel or often visit the country and thus can't visit Iran, or whether there are any Russians learning the language that learn it first through Cyrillic and through spending some time in Tajikistan, and then later on plunging into the Perso-Arabic script. (Afghanistan is another country where it could be learned but it's much too dangerous for most) If anyone else has some examples of this, I'd appreciate it.