Iran Summons China's Envoy Over Joint Statement With GCC

The battered rial dropped to a low of 370,000 against the US dollar, an almost 50-percent decline in 15 months. It was trading at 280,000 in August 2021 when the current hardliner president Ebrahim Raisi was elected.

Iran has been rocked by nationwide antigovernment protests since September after a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, was killed in police custody. She was arrested for violating the country’s forced hijab rules. But since then, protests have turned against the ruling regime, with many Iranians demanding a secular and democratic form of government.

The Iranian currency began to lose most of its value in 2018 when the United States pulled out of the nuclear accord known as JCPOA and imposed crippling economic sanctions. Since then, the currency has fallen more than tenfold against the dollar.

Although the Islamic Republic has been able to partly circumvent the sanctions by illicit oil exports to China at discounted prices, but the volume of around one million barrels per day is not sufficient to sustain the economy, which is mostly dependent on oil export revenues.

Negotiations with the Biden administration for a new nuclear agreement have failed.

The effective devaluation of the rial will make the already 50-percent annual inflation rate even worse and the ensuing financial pressure on ordinary people can deepen antigovernment resentments and intensify the protests.

Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of the 30-member Nato, warned of the dangers of Ukraine-Russia fighting escalating into a conflict between Russia and the US-led alliance.

Kirby, the White House security spokesman, charged Friday that Moscow was “seeking to collaborate with Iran on areas like weapons development and training,” and said Washington was “concerned that Russia intends to provide Iran with advanced military components.”

Kirby left analysts to speculate that Iran was interested in S400 air-defense systems, which could be useful against US or Israel attacks. Moscow has exported S400s to Turkey, a Nato member, and is currently transferring the system to India. Saudi Arabia reportedly shelved plans to buy S400s in 2021.

After decades trying to develop domestic arms production under international sanctions, Iran may see further potential in Moscow. “Senior [US] administration officials” have been widely quoted that Russia is ready to send Sukhoi SU-35 fighter jets to Iran, which has been unable to acquire modern fighters since the 1990s.

While the SU-35 would be no match for jets held by regional powers, including Israel’s US-made F-35s or the European and US planes of the Persian Gulf Arab states, they would represent an upgrade on Tehran’s Cold War-era US-made F-4 Phantoms, F-14 Tomcats, and F-5 Tigers and their locally-made versions.

Iranian weapons to Russia?

Contradictory accounts emerged this week on arms going the other way. After Kirby was one of two US officials saying on-the-record Wednesday that US had no evidence of Iran transferring missiles to Russia for use in Ukraine, the Washington Post Saturday quoted a US “military official” and an official “from a Nato member state” that Russia had acquired Iranian ballistic missiles.

Ned Price, the US State Department spokesman said Wednesday it was not the US assessment that Iranian military support could “tip the balance” in the Ukraine war.

But the US official quoted by the Post also said Iran would receive “up to $1 billion, in addition to other, still unknown inducements,” for establishing drone productions inside Russia – which would be welcome foreign exchange for Tehran, which has billions in oil revenue frozen abroad by banks wary of US punitive sanction under Washington’s ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions.

Presumably ahead of this drone production beginning in Russia, Iran had agreed to supply “up to 6,000 aircraft,” the official claimed, presumably meaning drones. The Post quoted a second official that Iran had agreed to supply “thousands”.

There were reports Saturday morning that Russian forces had the previous night launched at Ukrainian targets a dozen Iranian-made drones, mostly shot down. This came after a lull in their use since mid-November put down by Ukrainian officials either to Russia running out of supplies or the drones malfunctioning below zero degrees Celsius.

US arms to Ukraine now at $20 billion

The US announced Friday the 27th batch of US weapons for the Ukrainian armed forces, bringing the total supply since February to over $20 billion. Despite the European Union sending $2 billion in arms to Ukraine, Kyiv has criticized France and Germany for not sending enough.

The United Kingdom – whose foreign minister James Cleverly Friday spoke of “sordid deals” between Iran and Russia – has sent $2.3 billion in weapons to Ukraine and intends to match that figure in 2023. Ukraine has used military drones from Turkey and the US, as well as the Soviet-era drones used this week to attack infrastructure deep within Russia.

With Stoltenberg saying Wednesday that any terms to end the conflict should be decided by Ukraine, its president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that the city of Bakhmut was now “burnt ruins.” In the week he was named Time magazine’s ‘Man of the Year’ and Politico’s “most powerful person in Europe,” Zelenskyy accused Russia of genocide.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters Washington was very concerned about the "deepening and burgeoning defense partnership" between Iran and Russia, and would work to disrupt that relationship, including on drones.

Earlier, Barbra Woodward, the British envoy to the United Nations said Friday Moscow is seeking hundreds of ballistic missiles from Tehran and offering unprecedented military support in return.

Woodward said Iran had sent hundreds of drones that Russia had used in Ukraine.

Iran has already supplied Kamikaze drones to Russia that have been used to attack civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, including the power grid.

Tehran and Moscow have denied Western accusations that Russia is using Iranian drones to attack targets in Ukraine, where officials warned on Friday of a winter-long power deficit after repeated Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure.

Two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats told Reuters in October that Iran had promised to provide Russia with surface-to-surface missiles as well as more drones.

Washington was sending a $275 million package of aid to Ukraine to strengthen air defenses and defeat drones, he said.

"Russia is now attempting to obtain more weapons, including hundreds of ballistic missiles," Woodward told reporters. "In return, Russia is offering Iran an unprecedented level of military and technical support."

A 4,000-word joint statement from Saudi Arabia and China Friday, published by the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA), expressed common approaches on security, oil, and Iran’s nuclear program as well as a shared commitment to non-interference in countries’ internal affairs.

The statement said talks had discussed a “comprehensive partnership” and “continuing joint action in all fields” to set an “example of cooperation, solidarity and mutual gain for developing countries.”

The two sides agreed “on the need to strengthen cooperation to ensure the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program,” calling on Tehran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and to “maintain the non-proliferation regime.”

Speaking about Iran, they also emphasized “respect for the principles of good- neighborliness and non-interference in the internal affairs of states,” a clear win for Riyadh, while Iran regards China a close ally.

The statement’s section on Iran exemplified Beijing and Riyadh taking a transactional approach in finding common areas. While China has taken part with other world powers since March 2021 in talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), Saudi Arabia has been skeptical of the agreement and wary of Iran’s regional links, including to Yemen’s Ansar Allah, or the Houthis.

Washington has reacted warily to Xi’s three-day visit, on which he was received far more lavishly than was President Joe Biden in July. While some Arab lobbyists have insisted Gulf-US relations are as close as ever, Gulf officials have suggested US policy is incoherent, and rife with double standards.

The joint Saudi-China statement expressed support for an independent Palestinian state on the terms of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, effectively rejecting the US-sponsored ‘normalization’ with the Israeli state undertaken since 2020 by the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.

Still perturbed by the Saudi-Russia October agreement through Opec+ to cut global oil production, many US analysts are clearly uncomfortable. In the Washington Post Friday, columnist Henry Olsen argued the US needed to “emphasize our material security interests over our moral interests” in order to combat “China’s rising influence…throughout the Middle East.”

‘Usurp the US influence’

Olsen suggested Beijing could “usurp the United States’ influence…[and] could coerce the region’s kingdoms and dictatorships to use their production of fossil fuels against the West.” Sure enough, the joint Saudi-Chinese statement noted the “great foundations of the cooperation due to the Kingdom’s ample oil resources and China’s broad markets.” It also stressed the importance of stability in world oil markets, reflecting language used by Saudi officials to justify the Opec+ decision in October.

But the statement stressed the further opportunities that could be opened up through aligning Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative with Saudi Arabi’s Vision 2030. Bilateral trade reached $87 billion in 2021 and China is keen to extend infrastructure investment, including in Saudi Arabia’s $500-billion NEOM city in the north west.

The US is concerned not just at Saudi-China ties, and at talk of the two reducing the use of the dollar in bilateral trade, but at the growing links between Beijing and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). During his three days in Riyadh, Xi attended the inaugural China-GCC summit and, separately, the first Arab-Chinese summit, which involved the 22 members of the League of Arab states, including the President of the Palestinian National Authority. A plethora of bilateral meetings took place on the side-lines of both.

Twenty Arab counties have cooperation agreements under China’s Belt and Road initiative. Last year 51 percent of China’s oil imports came from Arab states, four-fifths of these from the GCC, while it has this year continued to buy 500,000-1 million barrels of oil a day from Iran despite the US threatening to penalize Chinese buyers under its ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions. In November China’s state-owned Sinopec signed a 27-year agreement to buy liquefied natural gas from Qatar.

In strengthening links in defense and security, the UAE has bought Chinese battlefield drones. Saudi agreed in March to manufacture Chinese drones domestically, while Riyadh, which already has Chinese ballistic missiles, is reportedly also enlisting Beijing’s help in developing a domestic ballistic missile program.

Barbara Woodward’s suggestion came two days after two United States spokesmen said Washington had no evidence that Iran had transferred missiles to Russia for the Ukraine war.

These statements followed Associated Press citing un-named officials “familiar with the matter” that Russia was looking to Tehran to replenish stocks of both military drones and surface-to-surface missiles.

Woodward said Iran’s weapons proliferation poses real and significant threat to international community. She added that Britain is concerned that Russia intends to provide Iran with more advanced military components.

With no sign of talks between the US and Russia to end the conflict, and with American officials suggesting any terms are for Ukraine to decide, both sides in the conflict are looking to replenish spent stocks or gain new weapons.

Both have used drones, or UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). Tehran said early November it had supplied a small number to Russia before the current phase of the Ukraine conflict, beginning February, whereas Ukraine has used US and Turkish drones as well as the Soviet-era UAVs used in this week’s attacks deep inside Russia.

US State Department Spokesman Ned Price said Wednesday that while Washington was “voicing concerns” that “Russia could look to Iran for ballistic missile technology,” the US had no “information to share at this point regarding current deliveries of ballistic missiles.”