Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain...
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Bahraini officials have taken the lead in this process. The country’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani visited Tehran to attend the funeral of Iran’s former president, Ebrahim Raisi, and former foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. Al-Zayani also participated in the Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) meeting in Tehran, where he met with the caretaker of Iran’s Foreign Ministry. During this meeting, the two sides agreed to resume bilateral relations.
Another Arab country that still has strained relations with Iran is Jordan. The foreign ministers of the two countries had not met since 2010, until Amir-Abdollahian and Ayman Safadi met in New York on April 21, 2024. Safadi visited Iran just three days after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, in Tehran, where he met with the caretaker of the Foreign Ministry and Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. During his meeting with the Iranian president, Safadi expressed his country’s eagerness to expand and deepen relations with Iran and work together to create more stability, security, and calm in the region.
Araghchi’s visit to Jordan and his meeting with his Jordanian counterpart and the King of Jordan reflect the strong will of both sides to ease and deepen bilateral relations and regional cooperation.
Iran’s diplomatic relations with Egypt have also had their ups and downs. The last time an Iranian official visited Egypt was 14 years ago, when the deputy foreign minister attended the inauguration ceremony of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. However, this visit did not help to break the ice in the strained ties between the two countries, until the former Iranian foreign minister, Amir-Abdollahian, and his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry, met on the sidelines of the Islamic Summit in The Gambia and agreed to continue their talks with the aim of resolving all the outstanding issues and normalizing ties.
During his recent visit to Egypt, Araghchi met with his Egyptian counterpart and also held talks with the Egyptian President. According to reports, the two sides agreed to continue their consultations to develop the bilateral relations.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is also set to meet with his Iranian counterpart on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, and it is expected that this meeting will give a boost to the normalization of relations between the two countries.
Araghchi’s trip to Jordan, Egypt, and now Bahrain is particularly significant not only for discussions and exchanges concerning regional tensions but also as a new pathway for easing and normalizing bilateral relations. It appears that common regional interests and concerns have brought Arab countries and Iran closer together. This does not mean that all the differences and misunderstandings between the two sides have been resolved, but it shows that past efforts to drive a wedge between Iran and the Arab world have not succeeded, and that as relations between the Arab world and Israel have deteriorated, Iran’s ties with Arab countries in the region have improved.