Are GCC Nations Ready to Normalise Relations with Iran?
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Roshan Amiri
- . August 22, 2022
- . Update: August 25, 2022 3:48 pm
Iran–A middle eastern nation is now rethinking its distance from Iran. In support of Saudi Arabia, the prosperous GCC nation, has now thought of sending back its ambassador to Tehran, reports have confirmed.
After a six-year break, the GCC nation will resume its services to normalize things with Tehran, its foreign ministry has confirmed. This is happening as a prelude to the Iranian nuclear deal which the US and the western world is trying to materialize.
With Middle East political alignments shifting, the GCC nation’s presidential adviser Anwar Gargash in mid-July called for an easing of regional tensions and signalled the ambassador’s possible return.
Many other Arab countries had also distanced themselves from Iran due to its nuclear activity and repeated threats to involve itself into terror activities in Middle Eastern nations rich in natural resources but with weak administrations.
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The GCC nation in question, in 2016, had scaled back its ties with the Islamic republic in in solidarity with Saudi Arabia, after Iranian protesters attacked the kingdom’s diplomatic missions in Iran following Riyadh’s execution of Shiite Muslim cleric Nimr al-Nimr.
‘Collective diplomacy’ has been the call for GCC nations in order to consolidate their power and protest against the notorious workings of Iran. Normalisation of relations with Israel with UAE was not appreciated by Iran in 2020. But Abu Dhabi has been pursuing a policy of rapprochement with former regional rivals including Qatar and Turkey as well as Iran, with which it had maintained strong economic ties despite the diplomatic downgrade.
Meanwhile, Kuwait has also done its bit. The new Kuwaiti ambassador to Iran, Badr Abdullah al-Munikh, submitted a copy of his credentials to Hossein Amir Abdollahian at the beginning of his tenure, last week.
Kuwait downgraded its diplomatic relations with Iran in 2016 in solidarity with Saudi Arabia over the storming of the Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran in the wake of the Saudi execution of a prominent Shiite cleric. Since then, Kuwait has not had an ambassador in Tehran.
