Iran in ASEAN

From March 5 to March 16, Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif visited four of Southeast Asia’s eleven countries as part of a broader Asia-Pacific trip which also made stops in Australia and New Zealand. Zarif’s ASEAN tour – which included Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand – highlighted both the religious and cultural links between Iran and parts of the region, as well as the willingness of both Tehran and a number of countries to boost ties following the lifting of sanctions on Iran following the implementation of a nuclear deal in January.

Zarif’s visits to Indonesia and Brunei – two of Southeast Asia’s three Muslim-majority countries – unsurprisingly stressed the religious-cultural component of ties in addition to other economic and political-security issues. In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, Zarif delivered a speech at a special summit under the auspices of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a 57-member international grouping that both Tehran and Jakarta are part of. Indonesia hosted the two-day meeting at the request of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to consolidate the OIC’s efforts to support the Palestinian people as well as the resumption of a peace process. Apart from addressing that gathering, Zarif took time to meet with his Turkish and Turkmen counterparts, where they discussed ongoing regional developments.

Zarif also met with Indonesian president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on the sidelines of the summit. They discussed economic ties, with Jokowi urging the quick implementation of business-to-business deals with a focus on the oil and gas sectors which are important to both countries. Since the termination of international sanctions on Iran, the Iranian government as well as its counterparts have been looking for ways to boost economic ties, and Indonesia is no exception to this trend. Terrorism was also a key issue discussed throughout the trip and in particular with Jokowi, an understandable concern since a deadly terror attack in the Indonesian capital Jakarta on January 14 – the first Islamic State attack in Southeast Asia – has led to rising fears in the region.

Local media outlets also highlighted that Jokowi had mentioned Indonesia playing a role in helping smoothing tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, whose rivalry has been often portrayed – often rather simplistically – as symbolizing the Sunni-Shiite divide that exists in the Muslim world. In January, visits of Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi to both Tehran and Riyadh to deliver separate hand-written letters by Jokowi amid Iran-Saudi tensions led to media hype about Jakarta playing the role of ‘mediator’ between the two Middle East giants. Though the vast majority of the some 225 million Indonesian Muslims are Sunnis, there are around 2 million Shiites in the country as well.

In Brunei, Zarif’s packed one-day visit to the country was filled with visits with top officials, most notably the Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah, the Crown Prince Haji Al-Muhtadee Billah, and the ministers of foreign affairs, energy and industry, and primary resources and tourism. Economically, it was a meeting of two countries who both rely heavily on hydrocarbons, with oil and gas accounting for over 80 percent of government revenues in Iran’s case and over 90 percent in Brunei’s. Both sides called for the boosting of cooperation in various fields including science, technology and the petrochemical industry, and Iran’s ambassador to Brunei Abdolhamid Fekri also said that the two sides would look to ink a memorandum of understanding in the near future.

Apart from economics, Zarif also discussed political and security issues in his meetings. In particular, he emphasized terrorism in this leg of his visit – a just like he did in Indonesia. Though the threat to Brunei is significantly less, relative to its neighbors Indonesia and Malaysia, the sultanate has nonetheless been concerned about its territory being used as a key transit point for militants. A few arrests were made in 2015 and efforts to strengthen intelligence-sharing with several countries including the United States are ongoing. 

Zarif’s trips to Singapore and Thailand were more narrowly focused on advancing political and economic ties. In Thailand, he participated in the 14th ministerial meeting of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), a 34-member international organization comprising of Asian and Middle Eastern countries first created by ousted Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra to promote Asian cooperation at a continental level. Iran will assume the rotating presidency of the ACD in 2017, and Tehran has been instrumental in some measures within the body such as the setting up of an academic network of universities among member states.

Both sides also focused on expanding bilateral ties, which Zarif explored with several Thai officials including Prayut Chan-o-cha as well as his counterpart Don Pramudwinai. In the security sphere, the two countries agreed to share information and join forces to combat a range of transnational threats, including human trafficking, drugs and terrorism.

But Zarif’s overwhelming focus was on economics. Though several countries have sought to strengthen economic ties with Tehran in the post-sanctions era, Thailand has been particularly keen on doing so, with its economy continuing to underperform under a ruling junta which seized power back in May 2014. Bangkok has sent three high-ranking delegations to Iran in the past two months – all of them with a large private sector presence. During the visit of Thailand’s deputy prime minister to Iran in February, six MoUs were inked between the two countries on nanotechnology, biotechnology, genetics and medical cooperation. According to Iran’s ambassador to Thailand, some of the areas discussed for future cooperation were oil and gas, the automotive sector, petrochemicals, infrastructure, fishing, tourism, hotel construction, and the food industry.

In Singapore, he met with several top officials including its prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, deputy prime minister and coordinating minister for economic and social policies Tharman Shanmugaratnam, and foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan. Discussions on how the relationship could move forward were dominated by economic issues. Zarif indicated that Iran welcomed the broad development of relations with Singapore across a range of fields such as energy, sea transportation, science, health and information technology. Particular focus was placed on exploring opportunities in the gas industry and petrochemicals.

On the political side, the emphasis was on exploring the state of the bilateral relationship more generally as well as exchanging notes on regional and international developments. For example, Zarif did brief his counterpart Balakrishnan about progress on the nuclear deal. He also delivered a speech at the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore. In the speech, Zarif explored the deal – known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – within the larger context of understanding and resolving regional and global problems constructively.

After completing the Australia and New Zealand legs of his trip, Zarif was back home in Iran by the morning of March 17. Although 2016 has proven to be a busy year for Iran thus far – with sanctions lifted in January and parliamentary elections just completed in February – his brief voyage to Southeast Asia suggests that the region will continue to play an important role in Iran’s external relations as Tehran seeks to intensify its engagement with the world in the post-sanctions era.