Moscow woos Iran

Press, 16 September 1987, Page 18

Moscow woos Iran

From the “Economist,” London

Russia, the country that inveigled America into reflagging 11 Kuwaiti tankers by letting Kuwait charter three tankers of its own, is taking care to benefit from the ensuing hullabaloo in the Gulf. The Soviet Union's deputy Foreign Minister, Mr Sergei Vorontsov, left Teheran last month with some ideas for Iranian-Soviet economic cooperation in his pocket, just when everybody else was trying to isolate Iran.

The Russians have long been trying to get on better terms with the ayatollahs. Mr Vorontsov’s argument for a negotiated end to the Iran-Iraq war was greeted with a raspberry, but otherwise his trip scored points for Russia. He discussed several projects with the Iranians, including one which could eventually bring Russian advisers back to Iran’s steel industry. The most important, for Iran, is a plan to convert its gas pipeline to the Soviet Union for delivering oil, which the Russians would then sell on the world oil market. Russian experts are expected to visit Iran before the end of the month to get things going. By finding ways to sell more oil, Iran could loosen the stranglehold the Iraqis’ air strikes have put on its oil revenues. That

would mean more money for weapons to keep fighting Iraq. And, just as important right now, talking to the Russian Indifel is an easy way of tweaking the American Satan’s nose. The Russians are under no illusion that Iran is anything but a temporary and temperamental partner. Russian soldiers are still being killed in Afghanistan by guerrillas supported by, among others, Iran.

Although American intelli?ence sources say that some US2OO million-worth of arms has been delivered to Iran by Russia’s Warsaw pact allies so far this year (mainly small arms, rifles, ammunition and trucks), Russia itself still arms and supports Iraq. Nor has Russia any desire to see the Iranians win the war: not only because of its links with Iraq, but also because of the threat that ayatollahdom rampant would pose to the Muslim republics in the southern part of the Soviet Union. If its leaders turned their zeal northwards, Iran could become Russia’s Nicaragua. It makes sense for the Soviet Union to talk to Iran where possible, and contain it where necessary.

But Russia’s Gulf diplomacy also serves another purpose. Al-

though earlier this year Russia was ahead of America in agreeing to help Kuwait get its oil through the Gulf, the much riskier American reflagging operation has allowed Russia to cast itself as the region’s quiet super-Power. Mr Gorbachev has been able to please Iran, and cover himself in easy virtue, by calling for all foreign warships to be pulled out of the gulf. Russia is the only super-Power now talking to both sides in the Iran-Iraq war, Mr Vorontsov shuttles worthily between the two, urging support for the United Nations’ cease-fire call.

All this wins applause for Mr Gorbachev’s “new diplomacy,” even as Russia polishes its own apple. The Russians may share the West’s desire to avoid a blowup in the Gulf; but they also want to diminish American influence, and increase their own, in the Middle East.

In the past 18 months Mr Gorbachev has distanced himself in public from Libya’s rogue Colonel Gadaffi, encouraged the Palestine Liberation Organisation to glue itself back together, tried to matchmake between Syria and Iraq, and flirted with Israel. Now he is trying to sweep both Iran and Iraq into his embrace. Copyright — The Economist.