TEHRAN: Qatar’s foreign minister Sheikh Mohammad bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani arrived in Tehran on Sunday in an unannounced visit and met top officials, days after visiting Washington, the state news agency reported.

IRNA said that Al-Thani, who is also Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister, met president-elect Ebrahim Raisi and the two discussed bilateral relations.

“Tehran puts special emphasis on relations with Doha,” Raisi said, noting that his administration’s priority in foreign policy will be relations with neighbours. “Be certain that Iran wishes well for its neighbours,” he added.

Qatar’s top diplomat earlier met Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif for talks focusing on the “latest bilateral developments and important regional and international issues”, Iran’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Al-Thani’s visit comes after he met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington on Thursday.

During that meeting, the two reviewed “bilateral cooperation and regional developments, particularly in Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and Palestine”, according to the foreign ministry in Doha.

The Qatari diplomat also emphasised the “need for an open and transparent dialogue between GCC countries and Iran, to achieve stability in the region”.

Since April, Tehran has been engaged in talks with world powers in Vienna over reviving a 2015 nuclear accord, with Washington taking part indirectly in the negotiations.

The talks aim to return the US to the deal it withdrew from in 2018 under former president Donald Trump.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2021