ShareMUSCAT: Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Oman on Monday as the two countries signed a string of trade deals and as international talks on Tehran's nuclear program hang in the balance, leaving the Islamic republic under sanctions. Raisi, on his second Gulf visit since taking office in August, was greeted by Sultan Haitham bin Tareq at the airport and received a 21-gun salute at the royal palace, an Omani statement said.
Raisi's one-day trip comes at a time when renewed talks on restoring a 2015 nuclear deal are at a stalemate. Oman played a mediating role between Tehran and Washington in the build-up to the original agreement. The countries signed 12 memoranda of understanding during the visit, including in the fields of oil and gas, transport, education, trade and investment, reported the official Oman News Agency.
"Trade exchanges between the two countries of Oman and Iran will improve definitely," Raisi said before departure, according to Iran's state news agency IRNA. "Both countries are determined to upgrade the level of political and economic ties," he added. A delegation of 50 Iranian businessmen travelled to Oman last week, IRNA said, adding that Iran's minister for roads and urban development has announced plans for a joint shipping line and tourist flights.
Oman is also seeking to import gas from Iran by building an offshore pipeline between the two countries, who are discussing the development of joint gas fields offshore. The sultanate, which faces Iran across the Gulf of Oman, endured economic pain during the pandemic, with its GDP dropping 6.4 percent in 2020 and government debt soaring. It saw rare protests over high unemployment and lay-offs last year.
Raisi visited Qatar in February, where he met with Amir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and took part in a conference of gas exporting countries. Stop-start talks to bring Iran back to the 2015 deal curbing its nuclear ambitions in return for a lifting of sanctions that was abandoned by former US president Donald Trump in 2018, began in April last year.
Earlier on Monday, Raisi warned Iran will avenge the killing of a Revolutionary Guards colonel who was shot dead in Tehran. Assailants on motorcycles on Sunday hit Colonel Sayyad Khodai with five bullets as he sat in his car outside his home. Iran blamed "elements linked to the global arrogance" - the Islamic republic's term for its arch enemy the United States and US allies including the Zionist entity.
It was the most high-profile killing inside Iran since the Nov 2020 murder of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Raisi said: "I insist on the serious pursuit (of the killers) by security officials, and I have no doubt that the blood of this great martyr will be avenged. There is no doubt that the hand of global arrogance can be seen in this crime," he added, echoing the Guards' assertion, before he travelled to Oman.
A memorial service for Khodai was scheduled in Tehran at 5:00 pm local time (1230 GMT) on Monday. The funeral will take place at 8:00 am (0330 GMT) on Tuesday in Imam Hossein Square in central Tehran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp said in a statement. The ideological arm of Iran's military, the Guards described Khodai as a "defender of the sanctuary", a term used for those who work on behalf of Iran in Syria or Iraq.
Iran maintains significant political influence in both countries and has backed President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria's grinding civil war. State television noted that Khodai was "known" in Syria, where Iran has acknowledged deploying "military advisers". The official news agency IRNA said Khodai was killed by five bullets as he returned home Sunday at around 4:00 pm.
The agency published pictures showing a man slumped over in the driver's seat of a white car, with blood around the collar of his blue shirt and on his right arm. He was strapped in with his seatbelt, and the front window on the passenger side had been shot out. The Fars news agency reported that the state prosecutor had visited the scene of the killing and ordered the "quick identification and arrest of the authors of this criminal act".
The Guards said they had arrested several "thugs linked to the intelligence agency of the Zionist regime," as Iran calls its enemy. A statement said the suspects had been involved in a series of crimes, including "robberies, kidnappings and vandalism". "The dimensions of this assassination are being investigated," said the spokesman for the joint chiefs of staff of the Iranian armed forces, General Abolfazl Shakarji.
Khodai's killing came as negotiations between Iran and world powers to restore a frayed 2015 nuclear deal have stalled since March. One of the main sticking points is Tehran's demand to remove the Guards from a US terrorism list - a request rejected by Washington. The 2015 agreement gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program to prevent Tehran from developing an atomic bomb - something it has always denied wanting to do. But the nuclear agreement was left hanging by a thread after then US president Donald Trump pulled out of it unilaterally in 2018 and reimposed biting economic sanctions on Tehran, prompting Iran to begin rolling back on its own commitments. - AFP
