Australia’s ties with Iran have seen a boost this weekend just passed. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop used her 36-hour trip to Tehran – the first high-level Australian visit to Iran in more than a decade – to cover a lot of ground: repatriation of some asylum seekers, nuclear issues, and intelligence sharing between the two nations. It is this last point that is the most important and unusual.
Iran will share intelligence gathered from its operatives fighting in Iraq with Australia. This would have been unthinkable a few years ago, but Iran’s greater willingness to make some concessions on its nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions, a measure of liberalism under President Hassan Rouhani, and the expediency of new alliances in the face of Islamic State threats have helped to drive new and closer ties.
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