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| Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (Copyright: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; website – www.dfat.gov.au) |
By Helen Clark
The Australian foreign minister covers a lot of ground during a brief visit to Tehran.
Australia’s ties with Iran have seen a boost this weekend just passed. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop used her 36-hour trip to Tehran – the first high-level Australian visit to Iran in more than a decade – to cover a lot of ground: repatriation of some asylum seekers, nuclear issues, and intelligence sharing between the two nations. It is this last point that is the most important and unusual.
Iran will share intelligence gathered from its operatives fighting in Iraq with Australia. This would have been unthinkable a few years ago, but Iran’s greater willingness to make some concessions on its nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions, a measure of liberalism under President Hassan Rouhani, and the expediency of new alliances in the face of Islamic State threats have helped to drive new and closer ties.
Bishop believes Iran has credible information to offer on Australians fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq. “They are very present in Iraq. The [Iranian] Revolutionary Guard is on the ground, they are working with the security forces. They are carrying out operations in Tikrit and elsewhere, they are all over the place,” she said.
“It’s in our interest to gain as much information as we can on those Australians who are seeking to take part in terrorist activities in Iraq and Syria and beyond,” she added Monday night.
Read the full story at The Diplomat