Tehran Expecting Economic Windfall From Renewed Ties With Riyadh
Iran’s government-controlled media is speculating about the direct economic benefits of restoring relations with Saudi Arabia, amid a deep economic crisis.
Iran’s government-controlled media is speculating about the direct economic benefits of restoring relations with Saudi Arabia, amid a deep economic crisis.
Although it is not clear how far the Saudis are willing to go in developing ties with Iran, the hard-pressed government in Tehran is encouraging expectations of a big windfall.
The government’s official news website IRNA Saturday carried a lead article titled, “Expansion of trade relations with Saudi Arabia, an important leap for Iran’s economy.” There were also similar opinions in other websites.
IRNA’s article carried no concrete information about when and how economic relations will expand with Riyadh, while Tehran is under US sanctions. IRNA, in fact, presented a wish-list.
Meanwhile, Saudi officials arrived in Iran to discuss procedures for reopening Riyadh's embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad, the Saudi foreign ministry said on Saturday.
The only concrete hope Tehran can have is easing financial and commercial restrictions by the United Arab Emirates, close ally of Saudi Arabia, for potential Iranian attempts to circumvent US banking sanctions. Washington will be certainly watching the situation, but any Saudi acquiescence in helping Tehran indirectly break sanctions could be a blow to the United States pressure policy on the Islamic Republic.
CIA Director William Burns visited Saudi Arabia this week to reaffirm intelligence cooperation, a US official said on Thursday, as the kingdom on the same day Iranian and Saudi top diplomats met in Beijing to start the process of re-establishing diplomatic ties.
China's role in arranging the deal was seen by some experts as signaling a decrease in US influence with Saudi Arabia amid tensions between Washington and Riyadh over a number of issues, including human rights and Saudi oil production cuts.
"Director Burns traveled to Saudi Arabia, where he met with intelligence counterparts and country leaders on issues of shared interests," the U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.
If not on the economic front, the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement is already giving diplomatic and security dividends, at least in reducing tensions in Yemen.
Saudi and Omani envoys are planning to visit Yemen's capital Sanaa next week to negotiate a permanent ceasefire deal with Iran-aligned Houthi officials, according to Reuters, and end an eight-year-old conflict there, two people involved in the talks said.
Oman, which shares borders with Yemen and good relations with both Riyadh and Tehran, has been trying for years to bridge differences between Yemen's warring parties, and more broadly between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the United States. A permanent ceasefire in Yemen would mark a milestone in stabilizing the Middle East.
If an agreement is reached, the parties could announce it before Islam's Eid holiday starting April 20, the sources said.
Right before news of a possible peace visit to Sanaa by Saudi and Omani representatives, the Saudi led military coalition lifted eight-year-old restrictions on imports headed for Yemen's southern ports, the internationally recognized authorities said, in a sign that peace talks are progressing with the Houthi group in the north.
This follows the easing of restrictions in February on commercial goods entering the Houthi-held western port of Hodeidah, the country's main seaport, as Yemen's warring sides work to reinstate an expired UN-brokered truce deal.
The Saudi-backed government based in the south said in a statement late on Thursday that commercial ships would be allowed to dock directly in southern ports, including Aden, and all goods would be cleared, with some exceptions.
Abu Bakr Adeed, deputy head of Yemen's Chambers of Commerce, told Reuters ships would not have to stop at the Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah for security checks for the first time since the Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015.
Ahmad Ardestani told Rouydad24 website in Tehran that "regardless of Iran's attempts, regional countries shaped their attitude after the Islamic revolution based on the United States’ view about the new Iran."
"The Islamic Republic created the Resistance Front to showcase its regional hegemony." Resistance Front is the regime’s officials' jargon about the anti-US alliance it has created in the region, by supporting militant proxy groups in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria.
According to Ardestani, the Islamic Republic uses the ‘Resistance Front’ to portray Tehran as a regional superpower. He said, no matter who likes it or not, Iran is at loggerheads with the United States and that explains its interaction with countries such as Russia and China.
"Unfortunately, Europe and the United States pushed Iran toward the East with their ‘maximum pressure policy’. Now Iran has strategic ties with Russia and China while it has failed to maintain a logical relationship with the West," Ardestani said.
Meanwhile, Mehdi Motaharnia, an academic in Tehran questioned the concept of regional supremacy. "Iran's regional influence cannot help Tehran if it is not used to create a peaceful life for Iranians." What the Iranian government needs at the current juncture is legitimacy, he reiterated.
Speaking about the interests of the Arab side, Ardestani said that after the suspected Iranian attack on Saudi oil facilities in September 2019 and Iran’s continuing support for the Houthis in Yemen, the Riyadh as well as others in the region including Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE, concluded that instead of “bribing the United States” for protection, they should get closer to Tehran.
Ardestani added that in such a situation Iran needs to establish logical relations with the West. However, he failed to observe, or living in Iran prudently skipped the fact that Tehran’s policy toward the West is mainly driven by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s unwavering anti-US and anti-West ideology.
Elsewhere in the interview Ardestani said that both Saudi Arabia and Iran benefit from their recent agreement brokered by China, as this makes Riyadh immune to US blackmails, and gives Tehran an opportunity to present itself as a confident and stable state. He further characterized Iran and Saudi Arabia as the two wings that keep the region stable.
Critics of the Biden Administration say that its cold attitude toward Saudi rulers pushed Riyadh to diversify its foreign policy options, by restoring ties with Tehran and eliminating a constant threat.
He expressed hope that the agreement with Saudis could be a prelude to a nuclear deal with the West. Ardestani said in a controversial comment that "Now when Iran has stopped just short of making the [nuclear] bomb, it is the best time to revive the JCPOA."
He added that Iranian expats wish to suggest to the US Congress and others that Iran is not stable as protests are raging in the streets, but the West's intelligence agencies have reassured governments that the claim about Iran's instability are not true.
However, Motaharnia highlighted the instability of the regime. "If you have international influence and even if you are a regional superpower, but your society is not peaceful and is in pain, not only your apparent supremacy is not important, but it is useless and probably only good for propaganda."
Motaharnia reiterated that the Iranian government is facing multiple challenges that have eroded its legitimacy and have made it isolated in the region and within the international community. These challenges are exerting pressure on the government as the people want to separate the state from religion and criticize the government for its inefficiency.
He said Iran needs to change, but changing is difficult for a government which sees itself over and above everything else in the society.
The judiciary’s news website, Mizan, said Friday Abbas (Mojahed) Kourkour has been sentenced to death for the killing of Kian Pourfalk in Izeh in southwestern Iran on November 15, adding that the sentence could be appealed.
Kian and his family were targeted by plainclothesmen during a night of protests in Izeh while they were in their car. Kian’s father was also paralyzed as a result of serious injuries he sustained during the attack.
His mother, Zaynab Molaei-Rad, who was also in the car, has always insisted that it was plainclothes agents, not Kourkour and his friends, who sprayed their car with bullets and killed her son.
A former lawmaker from Izeh, Hojjatollah Darvishpour, confirmed the account Kian’s mother gave at her son’s funeral and said she had provided all the details about those who shot and moved her son and husband to the Red Crescent and then hospital.
Belgian politician Tomas Roggerman has accepted political sponsorship of Kourkour.
Kourkour’s family also insist that he was not anywhere near the site of the shooting and was tortured into “confessing” to the shooting in which Kian was killed. His mother, Golanbar Kourkour, has appealed to Iranians to help prevent his son from being innocently executed.
Six others including three other children, were also shot dead in Izeh during the same night but authorities claim the attacks were perpetrated by “terrorists” who wanted to discredit the regime.
Shocked by the indiscriminate killing of children including Kian during nationwide protests that began in mid-September many Iranians began to call the Islamic Republic a “child-murderer regime”. Tens of other children, including a two-year-old, were killed by security forces during the protests.
Kourkour’s mother appealing to Iranians to save his son’s life.
Kourkour and three other men, their families claim, armed themselves to take revenge on the government for the killings of November 25 in Izeh and hid in a village near the city but were ambushed by security forces four days later.
During an hours-long standoff in which security forces used heavy machine guns and anti-tank grenade launchers, two members of the group were killed and Kourkour and another man were arrested.
Over 500 protesters and bystanders were killed by security forces during the protests across Iran. Authorities have only taken responsibility for the killing of one protester, the 27-year-old Mehran Sammak, who was shot by a senior police officer in his car in northern Iran on November 29.
The regime executed four young men for their alleged role in the killings of government agents in December and January after hasty trials.
Kian’s mother with the mother of the man she says is wrongfully accused of killing her son.
The accused were not allowed to have access to defense lawyers before and during their trials. Many believe that protesters’ death sentences were based on “torture-tainted confessions”. Several other protesters have been sentenced to death in similar circumstances.
Death sentences based on torture-tainted confessions of the accused are not uncommon. Iran International has learned that currently two men, 19-year-old Farhad Beigi Garousi and 34-year-old Gholamreza Rasaei, have been tortured to confess to the killing of an intelligence official in Sahneh in Kermanshah Province in western Iran on November 18.
Locals say the officer Nader Beyrami was killed in a clash with mourners when he and his forces raided a funeral ceremony for a local poet and musician to prevent the ceremony from turning into anti-government protests.
Rasaei’s family say they have witnesses who will testify that he had not been present at the scene of the killing.
The deceased and both accused belong to the Yarsan religion which has many followers among the Kurdish population of the region. Many Yarsanis hide their religion for the fear of persecution.