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Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Wednesday visited Georgia, where he met with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. During the visit, Mottaki told the Georgian leader that Tehran was closely observing the ongoing events in the Caucasus and that his country wants stability and security in the region restored. The Iranian foreign minister also said that his government was in the process of offering solutions to various regional actors in the hopes of normalizing the regional situation.
Mottaki’s visit to Tbilisi comes a day after a meeting with his Armenian counterpart in Tehran and two days after talks with his German counterpart in Berlin. On Sept. 13, Mottaki held talks with Russian leaders in Moscow and then flew to Azerbaijan to confer with officials in Baku. This flurry of diplomatic activity on the part of the Iranians underscores Tehran’s deep interests in the Caucasus.
After seeing Turkey’s moves in the region in the wake of the Georgian crisis, the Iranians do not want to be left out of the game. The Iranian ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural ties to the Caucasus go back centuries — long before the Ottomans took control of the Caucasus, Persian empires ruled major parts of the area.
We have talked about how a resurgent Russia presents Iran with an opening to extract concessions from the United States in Iraq and on the nuclear issue. In this regard, Tehran’s calculus is that a Washington wanting to counter a revived Kremlin would be eager to reach a settlement on Iraq to free itself for dealings with Moscow.
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