Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim meets top Iranian officials in Tehran

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TEHRAN
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has met the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran for talks that focused on bilateral and regional issues in addition to efforts to restore Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal.
The Qatari leader arrived in the Iranian capital on Thursday, which coincided with the second day of negotiations between Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani and the European Union’s coordinator for the nuclear talks, Enrique Mora.
Al Thani is expected to visit several European countries after he departs Tehran. Qatar and European officials have been trying to facilitate stalled indirect talks between Tehran and Washington, which have been unable to finalise an agreement to revive the landmark nuclear accord that the United States unilaterally abandoned in 2018.
However, on Thursday the Iranian side appeared to be more focused on regional and bilateral issues as neither the supreme leader nor the president made any public mention of the nuclear deal, even as the Qatari leader reiterated his support for its revival.
Khamenei and Al Thani mainly discussed regional and bilateral affairs, according to the supreme leader’s website.
“The current level of economic relations between the two countries is low and must be multiplied,” the Iranian leader said. “Also, in political issues there is ground for more exchange of views and we hope this trip can become a new origin for expanding cooperation.”