{"id":11487,"date":"2023-07-13T12:08:29","date_gmt":"2023-07-13T09:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/?p=11487"},"modified":"2023-07-22T14:44:33","modified_gmt":"2023-07-22T11:44:33","slug":"significance-of-the-iranian-foreign-ministers-recent-gulf-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/monitoring-and-translation\/reports\/significance-of-the-iranian-foreign-ministers-recent-gulf-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a0Significance of the Iranian Foreign Minister\u2019s Recent Gulf Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian recently concluded<\/a> his Gulf tour after visiting the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman. This tour took place amid the stalled nuclear talks and Iran\u2019s consistent efforts to reduce its regional and international isolation. The tour aimed to identify avenues of cooperation with the Gulf States and possibly reach out to the West through indirect talks to address the nuclear stalemate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his visit to the UAE, he met with the country\u2019s President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed and his Emirati counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed. Iran and the UAE signed an agreement<\/a> to increase air transport services and  trade and tourism opportunities between both countries. During his visit to Qatar, Abdollahian met the country\u2019s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and discussed ways to increase bilateral cooperation. Earlier, Iran\u2019s Central Bank Governor Mohammed Reza Farzin visited Qatar to discuss ways to increase economic engagement and tackle impediments to monetary and banking issues. Iran and Qatar recently signed<\/a> bilateral agreements to cooperate  on a skilled workforce program through which Doha will  recruit Iranian workers and technicians to be employed in  various economic sectors.  In March, a delegation of Iranian and Qatari business leaders met in Tehran during a forum<\/a> that was organized to explore potential areas for cooperation in the investment and manufacturing sectors. Both countries have increased their economic cooperation in recent months and as per reports<\/a>, the volume of bilateral trade between Qatar and Iran has grown by 77% compared to last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During Abdollahian\u2019s visit to Kuwait, he met with the country\u2019s  Prime Minister Ahmad Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and his Kuwaiti counterpart Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.  They confirmed that Iran and Kuwait were pursuing mutual interests  and working to expand  their bilateral relations. Abdollahian had proposed<\/a> establishing a forum encompassing the Arabian Gulf littoral states to enhance cooperation and reiterated this proposal during his meeting with Kuwait\u2019s prime minister.  The visit occurred against the backdrop of disagreements between both countries over  the  Al-Dorra offshore gas field. Kuwait has reinvited Iran to discuss the sea borders after Tehran decided to initiate drilling in  the disputed gas field. Recently, Kuwait reaffirmed that it held \u201cexclusive rights\u201d over the gas field along with Saudi Arabia after both countries had agreed to jointly develop it in 2022. Kuwait\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued the following statement, \u201cThe State of Kuwait and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia… alone have exclusive rights to the natural wealth in the Al-Dorra field.\u201d Kuwait\u2019s Oil Minister Saad al-Barrak \u201ccategorically and totally\u201d rejected Iran\u2019s planned activities in the  gas field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his visit to Oman, Abdollahian met with the country\u2019s Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr al-Busaidi and as per reports, both discussed regional issues including the situation in Yemen. The foreign ministers also discussed the possibility of bilateral cooperation in the fields of energy, science, technology, tourism and trade and agreed to hold a meeting for a joint economic commission in the future. Earlier in May, Iran and Oman signed<\/a> agreements to increase bilateral economic cooperation and as per reports, the delegations sought to finalize a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement between both countries. Recent reports<\/a> indicate that the volume of trade between Iran and Oman has grown  by 41% compared to last year and Iran\u2019s exports to Oman have grown by 51% percent and imports by 29%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abdollahian\u2019s Gulf tour sent signals to the international community, especially to the United States, and it aimed to achieve a number of objectives.  Firstly, Iran  aims to increase its regional cooperation and the recent diplomatic moves aim to identify and boost cooperation in critical sectors such as energy and infrastructure.  Secondly, amid the stalled nuclear talks,  Iran has depended on Gulf states like Qatar and Oman to play a mediating role in order to reach out to the West.  Iran\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Nasser Kanaani during a press conference recently said that Iran had sensed positive steps in the nuclear talks. However, these still do not meet the demands of the Iranian leadership.  In June, Iran\u2019s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri-Kani  held a meeting with the EU coordinator for the nuclear talks Enrique Mora in Qatar to  identify ways to end the nuclear stalemate.  EU Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Peter Stano also confirmed<\/a> the meeting between Iranian officials and EU representatives in Qatar \u201cto address all issues of concern with Iran.\u201d Thirdly, by reaching out to its neighbors and de-escalating tensions, Iran aims to create a favorable environment for engagement with its regional partners to help in alleviating its domestic socioeconomic woes.  The surge in food prices and the rising inflation rate in Iran are major challenge<\/a>s for the Iranian government, which continues to face protests from different sections of society.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian recently concluded his Gulf tour after visiting the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman. This tour took place amid the stalled nuclear talks and Iran\u2019s consistent efforts to reduce its regional and international isolation. The tour aimed to identify avenues of cooperation with the Gulf States and possibly reach out to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":11488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7013,7012],"class_list":["post-11487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports","tag-gulf-tour","tag-iranian-foreign-ministers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11489,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11487\/revisions\/11489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}