TEHRAN – Iran expressed hopes Monday to turn the page in its ties with the United Arab Emirates during a rare visit by a senior official from the Persian Gulf Arab country.
UAE National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al-Nahyan arrived in the country earlier Monday at the invitation of Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
His visit also included a meeting with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
The trip was the first of its kind since relations between the two countries were downgraded in 2016.
That came after UAE ally Saudi Arabia severed ties with the Islamic Republic after angry protesters rallied outside Saudi diplomatic missions over Riyadh’s execution of a revered Shia cleric.
“Good relations with the countries of the region are one of the priorities of the new government’s foreign policy,” Raisi said during the meeting, according to the official news agency IRNA.
“We therefore welcome the development of relations with the United Arab Emirates,” he said.
“Relations between two Muslim countries should not be affected by the interference of foreigners,” Raisi added.
Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, along with its allies in the six-nation Persian Gulf Cooperation Council, back opposite sides in various armed and political conflicts in the region, most notably in Yemen and Syria.
But in the past months there have been signs of rapprochement as Saudi Arabia and Iran have held several rounds of talks aimed at improving ties.
Sheikh Tahnoun “expressed hopes that the visit... would be the start of a new period of relations between the two countries”, an official statement said.
He also said he hopes it would “pave the way to the consolidation and overall expansion of bilateral relations”, the statement added.
Earlier in the day, Tehran hit out at France for “destabilizing” the region by selling arms to Persian Gulf countries, days after Paris struck a record 14-billion-euro deal with the United Arab Emirates for 80 Rafale fighter jets.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh urged France to “behave more responsibly” and criticized the “militarizing of our region.”
“We are witnessing billions of dollars of arm sales to regional countries though they hold many meetings about our missiles,” Khatibzadeh said, mentioning Iran’s ballistic missile program. “With these actions, we become more determined to make our defense shield more active.”
The UAE security advisor’s visit coincides with that of Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal al-Meqdad, who met his Iranian counterpart Hussein Amir-Abdollahian on Monday.
“We had a good discussion earlier,” Amir-Abdollahian said at a joint news conference.
Sheikh Tahnoon, wearing a navy-blue thobe, black suit jacket and his signature aviator sunglasses, met first with Shamkhani. The two men smiled and shook hands in front of journalists before their meeting, a large map of Iran and the Persian Gulf looming behind them, with just a sliver of the Emirates visible on it.
Shamkhani said that “warm and friendly” relations between the countries remain a priority and that they shouldn’t be affected by other nations — likely a reference to the United States and the occupying regime of Israel.
The Iranian presidency quoted Sheikh Tahnoon as inviting President Raisi for a state visit to the UAE. A report by the UAE’s state-run WAM news agency said the two “discussed prospects of consolidating bilateral ties and explored an array of issues of common interest”.
Sheikh Tahnoon’s brother is Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi’s powerful crown prince and long the de facto ruler of the Emirates, a federation of seven sheikhdoms. Under Sheikh Muhammad, the UAE has

embarked on a rapid expansion of its military forces. The Emirates also hosts U.S. and French forces and its Jebel Ali port is the U.S. Navy’s busiest port of call outside of America.
But the UAE has pulled back from the Saudi-led war on Yemen. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the Emirates also has sought to mend diplomatic ties to Turkey and Qatar, which the UAE boycotted for years with several other nations as part of a political dispute.
Ali Baqeri Kani, an Iranian deputy foreign minister leading the Vienna talks, also recently traveled to the UAE for talks.