Oman’s Sultan visited Tehran for a two-day trip, emphasizing Oman’s role as a mediator between Iran and the West, and discussing the potential for improved bilateral relations in areas such as industry, defense, and security.
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tarik, whose Gulf country has been a long-time mediator between Iran and the West, arrived in Tehran on Sunday for a two-day visit.
His trip comes just two days after Tehran freed Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele from almost 15 months in custody in exchange for diplomat Assadollah Assadi, who was held in Belgium over a 2018 plot to bomb an Iranian opposition rally outside Paris.
Oman helped facilitate the swap.
The sultan met President Ebrahim Raisi, who said bilateral relations can improve in areas including industry and “defense and security affairs,” the presidency website said.
“Tehran and Muscat have common views on regional cooperation, strengthening and stabilizing the security, peace, and prosperity of the nations of the region,” it quoted Raisi as saying.
Oman’s official news agency tweeted memorandums of understanding and agreements on promoting investment had been signed.
The sultan’s visit comes a year after Raisi visited Muscat and follows a China-brokered rapprochement deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran announced in March.
Ahead of the sultan’s trip, the newspaper Asharq al-Awsat quoted Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Hamad Al Busaidi as saying Oman was optimistic the “historic” trip would be “beneficial in regional and global terms.”
Oman has close ties with Iran and played a mediating role between Tehran and the United States in the build-up to a nuclear deal Iran, and world powers reached in 2015.
The last visit by an Omani sultan to Iran was in 2013 when Qaboos bin Said Al Said visited Tehran during the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, who was in office when the 2015 deal was sealed.
Miroslava Salazar with AFP
