《國家智庫報告：“一帶一路”視野下亞非經濟圈的構建與發展（英文版）》：
Secondly, Iran has been active in developing diplomatic relations with Qatar, Oman and Kuwait. Qatar is friendlier to Iran among Gulf countries and has always been suggesting dialogues with Iran in the Gulf Cooperation Council （GCC）. After the signing of the nuclear deal, Iran intensified diplomatic efforts with Qatar. In March 2015, Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani visited Qatar and held a meeting with the emir and the parliament speaker of Qatar, expressing the interest in bilateral cooperation. On the occasion of Lesser Bairam in July of that year, Iran's president Hassan Rouhani expressed his intent on a phone call with Qatar's emir to improve neighbor relations, launch political consultation, promote regional stability and fight terrorism, which received warm response from the latter. Later, Qatar made a lot of efforts to bring Iran and Gulf countries into dialogues on various occasions organized by the United Nations and the GCC. As to their economic and trade relations, Qatar is a major export destination for Iran which exports a lot of agricultural products, handicraft and livestock products to Qatar. Meanwhile, it should be noted that Iran and Qatar differ greatly over the Syria issue and it'll be difficult to significantly improve their relations in a short time.
Iran has been on good terms with Oman. Among the GCC members, Oman is the only one which didn't get involved in the Yemen war. In 2014, Oman hosted the six-party talks for the Iran nuclear issue and played a very positive role. In 2015, Iran and Oman maintained ministerial dialogues and re-defined their maritime border, paving the way for the development of their bilateral relations. At the GCC foreign ministers' meeting held in August 2015, Oman welcomed Qatar's suggestion about holding dialogues with Iran. Iran's president Rouhani valued the relations with Kuwait and struck a series of cooperation deals with the emir of Kuwait to launch investment, financial and tourism cooperation. In 2015, Iran's economic minister and foreign minister visited Kuwait, held a meeting with Kuwait's emir and reached consensus with the latter on regional peace and security as well as economic and trade cooperation. But in August 2015, Kuwait destroyed an arms sales group and claimed that it's associated with Iran and Hezbollah, casting shadow over the bilateral relations. It should be noted that Kuwait's current diplomatic choice is to balance the relationship with Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Thirdly, Iran's conflicts with Saudi Arabia and others won't be eased in the short term. Since the Islamic Revolution, Saudi Arabia has viewed Iran as a rival in the Middle East and the United States and Russia have stepped into the Iran-Saudi Arabic confiict. Since 2015, the stampede in Mina valley of Mecca and the execution of Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr by Saudi Arabia have worsened the relations between the two. In January 2016, Saudi Arabia declared to sever relations with Iran. What really brought their relations to an end was the war in Yemen and Syria. In Yemen, the Houthis armed group supported by Iran and the allied army led by Saudi Arabia clashed fiercely in March 2015. Following that, the bilateral relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia deteriorated rapidly. In Syria, Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah sent armies to fight with the Bashar al-Assad regime while Saudi Arabia was with the Syrian rebels. After the Aleppo battle, the Bashar al-Assad regime had the upper hand and the extremist group was severely damaged. It'II be highly unlikely to see any improvement in the Iran-Saudi Arabia relationship in the short term. It should also be noted that the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia is not limited to the Middle East; the tension could be felt, to a varying degree, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which will inevitably affect Iran's next move in Central Asia.
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