Blue Ocean

There are currently eight direct flights per week between Tehran and Bangkok. Iranians add to the huge number of foreign visitors in Thailand, which ranks behind only Malaysia in terms of tourist arrivals in Southeast Asia.

We should have been ahead in this region in forging closer people-to-people exchanges with Iran, since we’re marking the 50th year of official relations with that country.

But we tend to go where Uncle Sam takes us. Also, perhaps Thailand has a keener appreciation of the world’s so-called Blue Oceans – untapped markets where competition is not yet stiff, where rules of the game have yet to be written and demand created, and opportunities for business growth can be greater.

Iran, now under new leadership, is promoting its Blue Ocean image and opening its arms to the world. Even Uncle Sam and its western allies are welcome – as long as they don’t tell the Iranians what to do.

“In the coming months, you will see,” Iranian Ambassador Ali Asghar Mohammadi said yesterday. “The western countries are in line to rush to Iran.”

He may not be exaggerating. Many Iranians may be fond of their former firebrand president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who doubted the reality of the Holocaust and wanted to obliterate Israel from the map. But his replacement with someone seen to be less quirky, the UK-educated moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani, is helping improve Iran’s global image. Rouhani enjoyed the support of reformists in his landslide victory.

Ambassador Mohammadi visited The STAR yesterday together with Ramin Mehmanparast, head of the Office of Public Diplomacy in their Ministry of Foreign Affairs, his deputy director Mohsen Shamsizadeh Ravandi, and female Iranian reporters Farzaneh Shokri and Zeinab Haj Hosseini.

Mehmanparast is the first top-level Iranian official to visit Manila in a long time. He arrived Sunday and leaves tomorrow afternoon. Manila was his only destination in this part of the world – an indication, the group pointed out, of the importance Tehran attaches to ties with the Philippines.

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Iranian officials fume over economic sanctions imposed by the US and its allies over Iran’s nuclear program and suspected support for violent extremists. But the sanctions, which the Iranians say violate rules of the World Trade Organization, are likely to ease if Rouhani lives up to his image as a reformist president.

Iran’s nuclear program, which Mohammadi described as “completely peaceful,” remains under the control of the country’s unelected clerics, but it may be easier for Rouhani to persuade the world that the program is geared toward peaceful civilian uses.

Next month Tehran will be meeting again with representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for technical discussions on the nuclear program. The meetings are regular and Iranians stress that their program has always been open to global scrutiny.

The Iranians see their nuclear program as a scientific achievement that should be a source of pride for Asians and other developing countries. Scientific and technological development, the Iranians emphasize, is a right that must not be monopolized only by the Americans and their allies.

Iranians, Mohammadi said, are not second-class citizens of the world: “We cannot accept that.”

He pointed out that the economic sanctions and other actions of the US and its allies in the Middle East are causing problems that push up fuel prices worldwide.

“You are paying the price of the insecurity in other parts of the world,” Mohammadi said, adding that even Filipino jeepney drivers suffered the consequences.

He emphasized that Iran “never stopped talking” with the IAEA in the eight years under Ahmadinejad.

“We would like to create stability and security in all of the world especially in the Middle East,” Mehmanparast told us. “We think that after the presidential election in Iran, the atmosphere will be better than before.”

Tehran is ready to cooperate with the IAEA and the world, the Iranians said. All the trouble, they noted, stem from political issues, mainly coming from the members of the “5+1” – the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany.

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Iran has 15 neighbors by land and sea and is positioning itself as a connecting hub to the Central Asian Blue Ocean.

Mehmanparast noted that Iran could serve as a facilitator for business and travel between Southeast and Central Asia, and help generate jobs for overseas Filipino workers.

The Iranians see opportunities opening up not only in their country but also in Iraq, Afghanistan, and countries such as Kazakhstan where up to a million workers are needed for infrastructure and development projects.

Mohammadi said innovative and talented Filipino entrepreneurs must seek out new markets, away from the “Red Market” in the Asia-Pacific where competition is stiff and dominated by China. Even the Chinese, the Iranians observed, are seeking Blue Oceans, notably in Africa.

Already the Europeans are looking at opportunities in Iran, Mohammadi said, as he invited the Philippines to take a closer look at his country.

With direct flights, Mehmanparast believes they can offer to Filipinos an all-in travel package for a week’s stay in Iran for less than $1,000.

“The relationship with the Philippines is very important for Iran,” he said.

The feeling should be mutual for the Philippines.