Oman’s sultan due in Tehran with Iran-Egypt détente on agenda

TEHRAN, Iran (AA): Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq arrives in Tehran on Sunday, a year after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi toured the Arab country across the Strait of Hormuz.

According to reports, the visit will focus on “promoting cooperation” between the two Persian Gulf neighbors and build on deals reached during Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to Muscat in May last year.

Sultan Haitham will also be carrying messages from Egypt and the US for Iran as Muscat steps up its role as a mediator in line with its active neutrality in regional conflicts.

“The sultan’s visit to Tehran comes days after he visited Cairo and held talks with [President] Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, which is significant given Muscat-mediated efforts in recent months aimed at Iran-Egypt rapprochement,” an informed source in Tehran revealed.

“Oman, which has close ties with both Tehran and Washington, has also been making hectic efforts to break the logjam over the 2015 nuclear deal talks and bring the US back into the agreement, so that will figure prominently in Sultan Haitham’s talks with Iranian officials.”

Pertinently, since Sultan Qaboos’s death in January 2020, his former top diplomat and successor has carried forward his legacy of being an effective mediator in regional conflicts, which was seen in the case of Iran and Saudi Arabia, Syria and its Arab neighbors, and even Riyadh and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

Oman, in particular, played a low-key but instrumental role in helping regional rivals Tehran and Riyadh bury the hatchet and restore diplomatic ties after seven years.

Iran-Egypt détente

Oman, a strategically located Arab country sitting at the confluence of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, has for long shown active neutrality in regional and global conflicts, maintaining close ties with Iran and other Persian Gulf countries.

More recently, Muscat, along with Iraq, helped Iran and Saudi Arabia revive their diplomatic ties even though the breakthrough came in Beijing after two years of marathon negotiations.

Tehran-Saudi détente paved the way for the restoration of ties between Iran and other Arab countries, including Egypt, with Oman again playing the role of a mediator between them.

Sultan Haitham’s visit to Tehran follows his trip to Cairo where he discussed with Sisi “overall regional and international developments,” according to Oman’s state news agency.

Iran, according to informed sources, featured prominently in discussions between the two leaders.

Speculation is rife about Iran and Egypt exchanging ambassadors soon, as well as the possibility of the two presidents meeting in the near future as Oman-mediated tension-easing talks bear results.

“Oman has done this quiet diplomacy for decades, mediating fence-mending talks between regional countries,” Ehsan Moqaddam, a Middle East affairs analyst, commented.

“The successful mediation of Iran-Saudi talks has raised the prospects of Iran-Egypt rapprochement too in the near future,” he said.

Oman has also been mediating talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen in a bid to end years of a devastating war.