January 24-2014
The report also said Oman had agreed to allow Iranian military forces to be stationed in Oman opposite the Strait of Hormuz, allowing the Iranian military to operate pincers on the strait.
No publication other than Defense News, a well-respected Washington-based magazine, has reported on any talks let alone any agreement. The Iran Times was unable to confirm the report, published last Wednesday.
Six days after the report was published, Iran’s Foreign Ministry denied reaching any agreement with the UAE over the islands. “The report is completely false, and no agreement has been reached,” spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham said Tuesday.
Many analysts, furthermore, doubted the report, although there was broad agreement that the Rohani Administration wishes to settle the decades-old dispute and understands it cannot hope to resolve its problems with the Arab world as long as the territorial dispute simmers. But the hassle over the islands is no longer the major friction in Iran’s relations with the Arab world; it has long since been buried by the rise in Sunni-Shia frictions.
Afkham did not address the issue of whether the two countries have held talks on the islands. Some analysts suspected that the published report was based on a UAE proposal to Iran, rather than an agreement.
Defense News said it got its information on the talks from a “high level UAE source,” who remained unnamed.
According to that source, UAE and Iranian officials have engaged in secretive talks with the help of the Omani government over the past six months—that is, since President Rohani was inaugurated in early August.
“A deal has been reached and finalized on the Greater and Lesser Tunbs,” Defense News quoted the source as saying. He said those two islands, neither of which has any native population, are to be returned to the UAE while a final agreement on Abu Musa is being hammered out.
That struck many as unlikely. In its nuclear talks with the Big Six, Iran has been very insistent on the normal diplomatic standard that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”—so insistent it required those words be included in the Joint Plan of Action signed in November by Iran and the Big Six.
Thus, it seemed highly unlikely that Iran would agree to give up the two Tunbs while the final status of Abu Musa was still up in the air.
The UAE source told Defense News, “Iran will retain the seabed rights around the three islands while the UAE will hold sovereignty over the land.” That would enable Iran to exploit any oil and gas deposits found in the area.
Under a secret deal Britain negotiated with the Shah in 1971, Abu Musa was jointly administered by the two countries; both countries publicly claimed ownership and simply remained silent about the other’s claim. After the revolution, however, the Islamic Republic took full control of Abu Musa and installed military fortifications around the perimeter of the island, which has a native population of around a thousand Arabic-speakers.
The Defense News article also reported: “Oman will grant Iran a strategic location on Ras Musandam mountain, which is a very strategic point overlooking the whole gulf region. In return for Ras Musandam, Oman will receive free gas and oil from Iran once a pipeline is constructed within the coming two years.”
Any such agreement would likely raise eyebrows in Washington and all across Europe—not to mention Japan and China—since it would give Iran the ability to raise the threat to shipping passing through the strait. Any such arrangement would be widely seen as negating Rohani Administration claims to be seeking to reduce frictions with the rest of the world.
Defense News than quoted its UAE source as saying, “Oman was given the green light from Iran and the US to reach deals that would decrease the threat levels in the region and offset the Saudi Arabian influence in the future by any means.” Few analysts believe the United States would do any such thing, as that would amount to unilaterally ending the US-Saudi alliance that dates back seven decades.
Defense News said the agreement on returning the Tunbs was finalized December 24.
The United Arab Emirates was formed in 1971 as a federation of seven separate emirates that had been under the tutelage of Britain for the better part of a century. One of the emirates, Sharjah, claimed Abu Musa, and another emirate, Ras al-Khaimah, claimed the Tunbs. Iran claimed all three as well as Bahrain.
As Britain was withdrawing from the Persian Gulf, it moved to resolve those claims to bring stability to the region. The Shah gave up his claim to Bahrain just before it became independent and won the Tunbs and joint management of Abu Musa in exchange. The agreement was made with Britain just days before the UAE was established, so the UAE had no say in the matter.
Shortly after the revolution, the Islamic Republic seized the totality of Abu Musa and began militarizing it. Defense News said its source reported that the Iranian military on Abu Musa has already started to stand down. “They are in the process of destroying their bunkers on the island,” he said.
Last month, a senior US military official told Defense News Iran had removed the squadron of Su-25 Russian-made jet fighters it had earlier deployed on Abu Musa. But there was no report of fortifications being dismantled.
There does appear to be some effort to address the islands dispute. Last month, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed visited Tehran and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif went to Abu Dhabi the following week to meet with UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed an-Nahayan. But whether those meetings have produced any real movement is uncertain. Nothing has been announced by either government.
The island claims are a major issue with nationalists in Iran, even though the islands don’t really amount to much. Giving them up might not bother many Reformists, but would likely rally hardliners against the Rohani Administration and give him more political trouble than his nuclear concessions. It is one thing for Iran to make concessions to six of the most powerful countries in the world that are seen as wringing Iran’s neck. But to make concessions to what is widely viewed in Iran as a puny and insignificant Arab country is something else again.
Ali Vaez, an Iranian-born senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, which is headquartered in Brussels, said he was skeptical there is any such deal.
He told Defense News, “President Rohani is in a fragile domestic situation as a result of hardline criticism of his conciliatory nuclear approach and outreach to the United States. Under these circumstances, any move perceived as undermining the country’s sovereignty could turn into the last straw that breaks the Rohani Administration’s back.”
However, he said the Iranian government is genuinely seeking to improve its ties with its neighbors, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi has approved the effort.
“But neither the Rohani administration nor Khamenehi would accept to capitulate to the demands of their neighbors for the sake of having a better relationship with them,” Vaez said.