Kuwait Reopens Embassy; Saudis Extend Olive Branch : Iran Improving Ties With Arab States

KUWAIT —  The Iran Air office in downtown Kuwait recently underwent a face lift, an apt symbol of the improving relations between Iran and Kuwait and a foretaste, perhaps, of expanding trade and business links between the two countries.

Such changes were unthinkable only a year ago, when Iran was firing Silkworm surface-to-surface missiles at vital Kuwaiti installations, and this tiny sheikdom in the northwest corner of the Persian Gulf anxiously placed half of its oil tanker fleet under a protective U.S. Navy umbrella.

Although a cease-fire declared Aug. 20 in the 8-year war between Iran and Iraq has produced only an uneasy truce between those countries, the lull in the fighting has led to a sudden, marked improvement in relations between Iran and the Arab states arrayed along the western shores of the gulf, who were Iraq’s primary supporters in the war.

Kuwait has reopened its Tehran embassy, which was looted and sacked last year by Islamic militants, and plans to send an ambassador shortly. Bahrain has allowed the Iranians to send a charge d’affaires to look after Iranian interests in the island nation.

Even Saudi Arabia, whose conservative ruling family was shaken last year when Iranian-led violence led to the deaths of more than 400 pilgrims in the holy city of Mecca, has extended the olive branch to Tehran.

King Fahd earlier this month expressed regret at Iran’s absence from an Islamic conference in Jidda, describing Iran as a fellow Muslim nation. He then ordered Saudi media to halt criticism of Tehran, which had reached vitriolic levels in the months after the Mecca debacle.

Equally striking, Iran has made a number of friendly overtures to the gulf states, openly appealing for better relations.

Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is the powerful speaker of Parliament in Iran, noted in a recent speech, “We should not embark on creating enemies for ourselves. It is on this basis that we are now cooperating with our neighbors.”

Speaking about Saudi Arabia in a subsequent comment, Rafsanjani, who is increasingly regarded as the most authoritative voice in Iran after the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, said: “We will respond positively to any real positive step by Arabia towards ending the problems between the two countries.”

So far, the improvement in relations is limited to such largely symbolic gestures as embassy re-openings and public statements. While Iran Air has redecorated its office here, there are still no flights from Kuwait to Tehran--passengers must still travel the circuitous route from Kuwait to Dubai to Tehran, while the possibility of more direct links is negotiated.

Nonetheless, the rapid warming between Kuwait and Iran is all the more surprising given the long history of hostility between the two countries. At the height of the Iran-Iraq War, Kuwait offered its harbor to Iraq to allow war supplies to be shipped overland after Iraq’s own ports were blockaded by Iran.

Tankers Attacked

Iran responded to this direct assistance by attacking Kuwaiti tankers, searching merchant shipping heading north in the gulf and, according to most accounts, by fomenting a series of extremist attacks within Kuwait. Followers of Khomeini among Kuwait’s large minority of Shia Muslims were discovered to have planted explosives in central Kuwait and attacked key government installations, including the country’s precious oil fields.

Next month, the first two of 17 Islamic extremists jailed for the December, 1983, bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait will be released from prison after serving 5-year sentences, an event likely to remind Kuwaitis of the pitfalls of their relations with Iran.

According to Western diplomats here, the Kuwaitis are cautiously offering Iran a return to international respectability in the form of diplomatic relations, talks on resumption of air links and possible Kuwaiti financial involvement in Iran, as an inducement to compel the Tehran government to improve its behavior toward the gulf states.

“If the Iranians are interested in reconstruction,” said one Western diplomat, “they have a stake in improving relations on this side of the gulf. The initiative has been more with Iran than Kuwait. Kuwait is in a responding mode.”

Some Kuwaiti businessmen are expressing hope that Kuwait will be able to reap new profits by helping both Iran and Iraq rebuild their war-shattered countries. There is a proposal to create a free-trade zone to promote re-exports, for example. But economists are dubious that there is enough money in either country to pay for any significant rebuilding at this stage.

The war forced Kuwait to sever most of its traditional links with Iran. There are 10,000 Shia families of Iranian descent here who primarily engaged in trade with Iran through a large fleet of sailing ships known as dhows that sailed across the gulf to such Iranian ports as Busheir. But since the start of the war, the dhow trade has increasingly gone to Dubai.

With majorities of Shia Muslims in both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s eastern province, as well as a large Shia minority in Kuwait, the end of internal subversion will mark a turning point in Iran’s relations with the gulf states.

“It will take time to develop confidence in Iran’s assertion that they want to establish good relations again with the gulf states,” said Tarik Moyyid, Bahrain’s minister of information. “They are still organized to promote disorder on this side of the gulf--the level of propaganda has gone down, but we want it to stop.”

So far, the only activity that caused any serious concern since the cease-fire Aug. 20 occurred in Bahrain during the Ashura holidays at the end of August. Demonstrators carrying pro-Khomeini and anti-American slogans marched through villages, a remarkable challenge to the country’s pro-Western and Sunni Muslim leadership. The demonstrations were broken up by police and a number of arrests were made.

According to a Kuwaiti academic who is Shia Muslim, the government still is really unaware of how direct a role Iran had in fomenting instability here. Shia Muslims are discriminated against throughout the Sunni-ruled gulf states, and this may lead to activity against the government as much as orders from Tehran.

Some diplomats believe that Iran’s virtual defeat in the war marked a significant turning point for countries like Kuwait, which had worried about Iran’s threats to turn the area’s sheikdoms into Iranian-style Islamic republics.

“Kuwait sees the failure of Iran in the war as the failure of the Islamic republics,” said one diplomat. “It was one of the most important outcomes of the war. The chances of creating other Islamic republics on this side of the gulf shrank to zero.”

Another factor affecting the thinking of Kuwait and other gulf states is the emergence of their erstwhile ally, Iraq, as a regional power. Since the end of the war, many Kuwaitis have sensed an increasing arrogance in the Iraqi government’s public statements.

The Kuwaiti relationship with Iraq is marked by contradiction: On the one hand, Kuwaiti businessmen this month raised more than $1.5 million to help rebuild the wrecked Iraqi port city of Al Faw. On the other, a recent request to Iraq to sign a border treaty was flatly rejected, according to Kuwaiti journalists.

Before the war, Iraq had asserted ownership of Kuwait’s northern islands. Baghdad’s refusal to compromise in a border treaty has led to renewed Kuwaiti unease about Iraq’s long-term designs.

In the past, when Kuwait felt threatened by Iraq, it turned for protection to Iran. Now, though, the gulf Arab states are having to rely more and more on themselves.

Kuwait recently spent $1.4 billion buying 40 F-18 warplanes from the United States, armed with 300 Maverick missiles. Saudi Arabia just spent $17 billion in a massive arms deal with Britain and acquired a fleet of Chinese surface-to-surface missiles, presumably as capable of hitting Baghdad as Tehran.