2024-05-20 12:09:57
After the dying of the Iranian president and all these touring with him within the crashed helicopter, together with Overseas Minister Hossein Amir-Abdullahian, have been confirmed, I return to my recollections of my assembly with the pinnacle of Iranian diplomacy in December 2022 in Tehran. Since we met shortly earlier than he left for Amman, the place a vital regional assembly was developing, I attempted to search out out one thing prematurely. However like every tricked-out interlocutor who desires to delay his reply, he responded with a counter-question, questioning what I believed was going to occur.
I informed him that I anticipated Iran to start out a dialog with Saudi Arabia. As surprising as this may increasingly have appeared to many on the time. I gave an instance going again a bit to when Iran was at battle with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Throughout these 8 years of grueling battle with one million casualties, there have been instances when nobody might even suppose {that a} peace settlement was potential. However peace was achieved, and that with out both aspect having misplaced or slightly seized even a bit of land from the opposite. Iran’s diplomacy was then led by a exceptional overseas minister – Ali Akbar Velayati – a superb connoisseur of the Arabs.
Subsequently, I consider that it’s you, Mr. Minister, as a superb connoisseur of the Arabs, who can obtain a breakthrough with Saudi Arabia. I mentioned this to Amir-Abdolakhian to not pay him undue compliments, however as a result of I used to be satisfied that he might actually speak to his Arab companions like nobody else in Iran presently.
Hossein Amir-Abdolakhian, who died yesterday, had spectacular experience on the Arab world, and after the dying of Gen. Qassem Soleimani was definitely the very best connoisseur of Arabs among the many Iranian state elite. He had began his diplomatic profession at Tehran’s embassy in Baghdad in 1997, rising to Iran’s ambassador to Bahrain. Earlier than changing into overseas minister, he was a overseas coverage advisor to parliamentary chief Larijani.
I return to our assembly in Tehran in December 2022. After I informed him that I anticipated him to start out talks with Saudi Arabia, he diplomatically hinted that I used to be heading in the right direction in my expectations. Subsequently, instantly after our assembly, I wrote with out hesitation on my Fb profile that the talks between the overseas ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia will open up alternatives for a wider dialogue sooner or later, together with by way of safety.
Precisely two days later, it turned recognized that the Iranian overseas minister and his Saudi counterpart had a gathering. In Arabic on Twitter, Amir-Abdoalakhian wrote that he had a “pleasant dialog” along with his counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud, who “assured him of his nation’s want to proceed the dialogue with Iran.”
It was the primary dialog at such a degree since 2016, when the 2 international locations severed ties in a really dramatic style. I’ll briefly recall the occasions.
In early 2016, Saudi Arabia executed 47 prisoners in in the future, together with the nation’s most senior Shiite sheikh, Nimr al-Nimr. This gave rise to demonstrations all through the Muslim world, the place giant Shiite lots reside. Riyadh’s embassy in Tehran was attacked and burned. Diplomatic relations between the 2 international locations have been severed, and the stage for the beginning of a bloody Sunni-Shiite civil battle had by no means appeared extra completely set.
These occasions even pitted some Sunni states towards one another when, the next yr, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt minimize ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism. An financial blockade of Doha adopted, and there have been even calls and threats to dig a canal alongside the land border between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, in order that the Qataris can be separated and overthrown even territorially, as if thrown into the ocean. However Iran then helped the emirate blocked by its Arab brethren.
At the moment, emissaries of nations from the quartet, which imposed an embargo on Qatar, started to reach in Bulgaria as nicely, in an try to make our diplomacy take their aspect on this overthrow. Then in “24 Chasa” I wrote the article “Qatar on our scale” during which I identified how silly it might be to take action, particularly towards the background of our ten years of political funding in Doha, and given the delicate nature of inter-Arab alliances. The state of affairs right now is greater than indicative.
After coming back from Tehran, in early 2023, I wrote that Iran and Saudi Arabia must be inspired to dialogue as a result of their chilly battle, whereas Russia’s “sizzling” one in Ukraine, is placing an excessive amount of pressure on the world’s safety structure .
I additionally did an interview with Amir-Abdullahian, during which one of many questions was what sort of response he expects from Europe, which has been in turmoil because the starting of Russian aggression in Ukraine, on condition that Iran is promoting weapons and offering drone know-how to Russia. He answered me that the cooperation between Iran and Russia within the subject of protection is one thing that has been occurring for a very long time. These are bilateral pursuits, he informed me, and must be seen as such with out being interpreted to the detriment of third international locations, together with Ukraine. After which he added that these international locations that blame Iran for the drones haven’t stopped sending weapons and ammunition to this battle.
Abdullahian was a diplomat of a really excessive class. It’s understood that each one his actions have been particularly concord with the insurance policies of President Raisi, who additionally died yesterday. Particularly concerning the unfold of Iranian affect within the Center East. And this concord was a lot stronger than there was between the earlier president Rouhani and his first diplomat, Zarif. Will something change in Iran’s politics after this dying? Hardly, as a result of the nation’s strategic pursuits stay unchanged.