Iran’s Aid to Qatar of Humanitarian Nature: Envoy

Alireza Enayati, the Iranian envoy to Kuwait, said Iran’s aid to Qatar has humanitarian nature and added the Islamic Republic of Iran is seeking to remove the problems in the region.

“Iran’s aid delivery should be viewed as a humanitarian one. Iran is not taking side with any certain Arab state in the current tension in the region. Since the beginning of the diplomatic crisis in the region, we have explicitly announced our position and called for dialogue to resolve the problems. We hope to see normalisation of ties in the region,” he said.

The current tension in the Middle East began when Saudi Arabia and a number of its allies including Egypt and the United Arabic Emirates cut their diplomatic ties with Qatar over what they called Doha’s support for terrorism. Kuwait’s mediation between the conflicting sides has not yet yielded any tangible results.

Qatar, under a blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia and its regional partners, was close to an internal crisis due to a great shortage of food. However, Tehran immediately came to its help and started sending tonnes of food products shortly after the row.

In an interview with Al-Rai newspaper published in Kuwait, Enayati said the delivery of the humanitarian aid has no bearing on the Iranian-Arab talks.

In response to a question about the possibility of Iran and Kuwait’s mediation between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, he said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran is seeking to establish good and positive relations with all states. If asked to mediate, we won’t hesitate to step in with reasonable and logical measures to ease the current tensions.”

The region, he said, is currently suffering from many crises and “there is no capacity in the region for the time being to go through another crisis.”

Touching on the economic ties between Iran and Kuwait, particularly their joint investments in the Persian Gulf, he said the Islamic Republic of Iran and Kuwait have already held their intensive talks on the possibility of joint investments in the region.

“The western side of the Persian Gulf needs a continuous investment by all regional players to reach the level of economic prosperity of the eastern side which enjoys a large number of ports, shipping lines as well as huge joint investments by regional states,” he said.

The Iranian official went on to say that Iran, Kuwait and all regional states would benefit from the continuation of the economic ties in the western side of the Persian Gulf and added the regional states can meet the region’s economic needs through close cooperation.

“We have offered Kuwait the launch of joint projects in the region. We have also expressed our readiness to work with them in the construction of Harir city,” he said.