Iran’s central role in the IsDB committee
AllAfrica
IsDB’s second session of the day started with the presentation of working papers. The Islamic Republic of Iran introduced a draft of a 9 million project to rebuilt regions destroyed by the conflict. The paper presents a pipeline that goes through Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, Turkey and UAE, with one condition: Syrian needs to adopt a more democratic regime. While with some questions about the economic aspect of the proposal, all countries seemed to understand the importance of the project.
Even though the first project was criticized, Iran is still trying hard to create a programme to reconstruct the areas destroyed by the conflict. The country presented a new proposal: a 1743km oil duct that passes through Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Kuwait. Each kilometer would cost 2 million dollars, and Iran would contribute with 1 billion and 500 million dollars — which means it would be the main contributor. Again, Iran established as a condition that Bashar Al Asad’s regime should reserve 10 percent of its cabinet to Suni people, in order to develop its democracy. Saudi Arabia and Turkey showed some resistance to the project, as they are concerned it could be Iran’s aim to dominate the region through it — the bigger the contribution, the bigger the power. Iran’s delegates defends its country by saying “IsDB is a win win project”, and every member of the bank should have the same goal.
Although the sessions are still at a slow pace, Iran appears relentless in its ambition to reconstruct the region destroyed by conflict. The IsDB still needs to approve a project, but its delegates seem to be getting to the right path.
