Zarif's Trip to Latin America; 'A Wasteland Left from Ahmadinejad's Era'

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's Foreign Minister, arrived in Havana, the capital of Cuba, on Sunday accompanied by a group of businessmen and economic activists. Zarif is scheduled to visit five other countries, including Nicaragua, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, and Venezuela. This trip comes less than a year before the end of Hassan Rouhani's presidency. Radio Farda, in an interview with Hossein Alizadeh, a former diplomat and researcher at the Peace Studies Center at the University of Tampere in Finland, asked him about the reasons for this trip under the current circumstances. Alizadeh noted that while Rouhani's administration prioritized opening up trade-political relations with countries worldwide based on a policy of constructive engagement, this priority faced a serious problem due to the economic lockdown imposed by nuclear sanctions. It appears that there have been some openings in this regard now. If these trips had been made earlier, essentially nothing would have progressed. Now that Zarif is making these trips to South American countries, he has also conducted periodic trips to Europe and other Asian countries. This series of periodic trips, including to South America, is intended to discuss the new conditions that have arisen face-to-face with these countries and to utilize the bilateral economic potential with them. During Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency, it was said that the policy of rapprochement with African and Latin American countries was pursued in contrast to European countries. Alizadeh does not see Zarif's trip as a continuation of Ahmadinejad's policy, arguing that Ahmadinejad's trips were born from a desperation to visit prominent countries, as he was not invited even once by European countries during his eight years in office. Therefore, he was forced to visit very small and not particularly influential countries in Africa and South America, especially Venezuela, which did not yield beneficial results for Iran's economic balance. However, Zarif's trip is parallel; he is conducting his European trips while also traveling to Africa and South America. Among the countries Zarif is set to visit, Chile and Venezuela stand out for two reasons: Chile because Iran's embassy will be reopened there after 37 years, and Venezuela due to the ongoing economic and social crisis. South America has not held significant economic and political weight in the Islamic Republic's equations until Ahmadinejad's time, when he managed to establish relations with Hugo Chavez out of desperation. There were nearly 17 trips between Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, during which several economic projects were initiated, including the construction of affordable housing for the poor, which now appears to have been a wasted investment in a wasteland. The economic situation of the Venezuelan people has now reached a point where they are suffering from hunger and shortages of basic materials. Therefore, the trip to Venezuela is likely intended for Zarif to gain a field perspective on the situation there and to avoid further investments. Regarding Chile, Alizadeh states that relations with Chile have been the weakest link among South American countries due to a lack of significant trade relations, influenced by the rise of Augusto Pinochet, the former dictator of Chile, who took power in the early days of the Islamic Revolution, leading to a severe stance from the Islamic Republic that resulted in a break in political relations. Now, with the passage of time and Pinochet no longer in power, Chile could serve as a market for Iranian goods. In recent years, there have been exchanges between Iran and Chile, and so far, the Chilean government has appointed an accredited ambassador for Tehran, while the Islamic Republic has decided to introduce a political representative to Chile, initially at the chargé level and possibly later elevated to the level of an embassy.