After mediating a prisoner swap between Iran and Belgium, Iranian state media reported that Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said landed in Tehran on a two-day visit to discuss regional diplomatic and security matters.
Oman has helped release some foreigners and dual nationalities from Iran as a Western intermediary.
On Friday, Oman helped release a Belgian aid worker detained in 2022 and sentenced to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes for spying in return for an Iranian ambassador condemned to 20 years for a botched bomb attempt in France.
However, dozens of foreigners and dual nationalities remain on espionage and security charges in Iranian prisons. Tehran denies creating allegations to gain concessions from the West, but rights groups have criticized the arrests.
Iranian state media stated that Haitham would visit President Ebrahim Raisi to discuss Iran’s nuclear program and deteriorating relations with Egypt.
The visit comes amid heightened criticism of Iran’s human rights record and suspicions that Russia is utilizing Iranian drones in its battle in Ukraine. Tehran denies supplying war drones.
Since September, six world countries have failed to resurrect Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal amid Western concerns about the religious establishment’s swiftly developing nuclear program.
The deal, which Trump scrapped in 2018, limited Iran’s nuclear activities, extending the time it would need to build a nuclear bomb. Iran denies nuclear ambitions.
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