Manama: Bahrain has extended an invitation to Iran to participate in the Manama Dialogue, the international security conference held annually in the kingdom’s capital.
“We have sent an invitation to Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javed Zarif to attend the conference and we look forward to his attendance,” Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa, the foreign minister, said late on Tuesday
The Iranians have not issued a statement on whether they send a delegation to Manama for the dialogue to be held on December 6-8.
US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel, and some other 20 ministers, have already confirmed their participation in the inter-governmental summit in which national security leaders from the Gulf, wider Middle East, North America, Europe and Asia consult bilaterally and multilaterally on key security and foreign policy challenges.
IISS said that the Manama Dialogue would also “convene analysts, business leaders, former officials and prominent members of the media to ensure open and transparent discussions, and to offer support and understanding in influential circles of evolving government policy.”
The conference will be the ninth to be co-organised by the Bahraini foreign ministry and the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) since 2004 when it was launched.
Iran has been a regular participant in the sessions, although it abstained last year as relations between Tehran and some GCC capitals, mainly Bahrain and Riyadh, plummeted over accusations of blatant interference in domestic affairs.
In 2011, the Dialogue was not held as Bahrain was working on healing wounds incurred by the dramatic events that occurred in the country earlier in February and in March.
In 2010, Iran’s then Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki made an outstanding contribution to the sessions and particularly raised high expectations when he was seated at the official dinner at the start of the Dialogue only five seats away from then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. All eyes were riveted on the main table to see if she and Mottaki would exchange words or greetings. However, Clinton later said that she tried twice to speak with him, but he turned away.
Mottaki gave his version of what happened at a press conference “Some people said that last night at the dinner Hillary Clinton said hello to me as I was greeting the king of Jordan,” he said. “According to the Islamic tradition, there is a necessity to respond. The people of this region are very famous for being polite.”
Although Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, twice attended the forum in 2007 and 2008 in a clear indication of the importance the US is attaching to the annual security conference, Clinton was the first US secretary of state has ever taken part. Mottaki attended the 2006, 2009 and 2010 conferences.
