Return of UAE ambassador to Iran a sign of easing tensions

The United Arab Emirates will this week send an ambassador to Tehran six years after relations were scaled back following attacks by Iranian protesters on Saudi diplomatic missions after the execution of a dissident Saudi Shia cleric.

The Saudi embassy in Tehran and consulate in the northeast Iranian city of Mashhad were sacked by protesters in January 2016 hours after Nimr al-Nimr was beheaded for inciting sectarian strife by leading and taking part in demonstrations.

The task of Emirati ambassador Saif Mohammed Al Zaabi will be to “advance bilateral relations to achieve the common interests of the two neighbours and the region”, the Emirati news agency WAM reported.

The Emirates opened talks with Iran in 2019 with the aim of ending drone and missile strikes on Gulf shipping and Emirati and Saudi targets. These have been blamed on Iran or Iran-allied Yemeni rebels who have been at war with the Emirates and Saudi Arabia since they invaded Yemen in 2015.

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The Emirati decision to restore ties with Iran follows a ceasefire in the Yemen war and Kuwait’s dispatch last week to Iran of an ambassador.

The return in January of Iranian envoys to the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation based in the Saudi port of Jeddah has been seen as a first step in achieving Riyadh-Tehran rapprochement.

Between April 2021-2022 Saudi and Iranian officials and security officers held five meetings brokered in Baghdad by Iraqi prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi to secure a resumption of relations. The main achievement of these talks so far has been the return in July of Iranians to the global Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.

The Emirates’ announcement of the return of its ambassador to Tehran coincided with make-or-break discussions involving the leaders of the US, Britain, France and Germany on the revival of the 2015 agreement for limiting Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions.

A week ago, Tehran delivered its written comments on a final text to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who shared the document with these four countries plus China and Russia, which are signatories of the deal abandoned in 2018 by ex-US president Donald Trump.

While Saudi Arabia and the Emirates initially opposed the deal, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have recognised it seriously curtails and provides for monitoring of Iran’s nuclear activities and could lead to co-operation in other fields.

Once Iran’s main Gulf trading partner, the Emirates is eager to resume commerce and host Iranian businesses and visitors, while Saudi Arabia could secure Iranian assistance in managing oil exports.

Iran exported nearly a million barrels a day in 2021 and, if sanctions are lifted, could, within six months, boost exports to two million and replace a portion of Russian oil supplies to Europe, which are sanctioned due to Russia’s Ukraine war.