How Saudi rapprochement could strengthen Iran's African ties as Ebrahim Raisi visits Kenya

Warmer ties between Riyadh and Tehran may relieve potential allies on the continent

President Ebrahim Raisi Kenya shakes hands with President William Ruto at the Statehouse in Nairobi. EPA

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi will conclude a three-day trip to Africa on Thursday after becoming the first Iranian leader to visit the continent in over a decade.

While his visit to Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe has focused on strengthening economic ties with the continent, Tehran's push for stronger regional alliances in the face of continuing Western sanctions may also encourage other nations to engage with Iran.

Iran rekindled relations with Saudi Arabia in March after a seven-year rift. Renewed relations with Riyadh, coupled with the ceasefire in Yemen, may relieve African nations of impending conflict, analysts have told The National.

The resumption of ties may spell a positive development for Iran-African relations “in terms of dialling down the inter and intra-belt tensions that are playing out on the continent”, said Eric Lob, an associate politics and international relations professor at Florida International University and non-resident scholar at The Middle East Institute.

“These countries maybe be feeling right now that they have a little more breathing room … that they have some more geopolitical capital to re-engage Iran. It would be less of a zero-sum game.”

Iran and Kenya signed several memorandums in Nairobi, hailing each other as “strategic partners”, while Mr Raisi pledged to open a vehicle manufacturing plant in Mombasa.

Mr Raisi will try to “rediversify” relations with African states as much as possible, said Mr Lob.

“Initially, he was kind of starting with lower hanging fruit,” he said of the President's first year in office, going towards smaller trade partners that still had geopolitical significance in different ways.”

“Kenya exports tea to Iran, which you wouldn't necessarily think of, and imports petrochemicals, carpets and other goods from Iran.”

“After South Africa, Kenya has consistently been the second largest African trading partner for Iran that even goes back to the days the years before the revolution. To make sure that partnership is solid on economic grounds makes a lot of sense.”

In Uganda, Mr Raisi lashed out at the West, offering support for the construction of oil pipelines opposed in Europe.

He said Tehran was ready to share its oil industry experience, while the West was “not generally interested to see countries who enjoy great resources and national reserves to be independent”.

On Thursday, he was scheduled to visit Zimbabwe, which was described by Dr Lob, as a “rogue pariah state facing sanctions and embargoes”. The country shares long-standing ideological ties with Tehran

Tehran may also benefit from uranium in Zimbabwe and Uganda, which would aid its nuclear ambitions.

Its domestic uranium enrichment has come under continued scrutiny from the UN's nuclear watchdog, which has warned that Iran now has enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear bomb.

While Tehran adopts an anti-Western and colonial that may appeal to its hosts in Africa, previous presidents made similar pledges to invest in the continent, which bore little fruit.

“I don't necessarily think we shouldn't be overly optimistic about what the Iranians could offer the Africans and what the Africans could offer the Iranians,” said Mr Lob, saying Tehran “can't afford” to solely look east and southward as it looks to resolve the nuclear deal fallout and eyes instability in Russia.

Mr Rouhani had made similar pledges to enhance ties with Africa, before focusing on shoring up broken relations with the West and establishing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

African leaders “are taking this all in with a grain of salt and seeing what they are really going to do,” Mr Lob said.