By Reza Shafa
The Economic Cooperation Organization’s (ECO) summit in Tehran ended on March 11, 2009. The Central Office for International Organizations at the regime’s foreign ministry had prepared secret guidelines for the political exploitation of this summit. The classified document says:
“In view of the recent economic challenges, our demand is to bring ECO to the path of instituting certain reforms, so that we would be able to promote the Tehran summit as the place of this organization’s new dawn. There are five primary gas producers at ECO. Members of ECO also have high transportation capabilities because they are at an unparalleled international crossroads. We must attempt at the Tehran summit to prevent this view from taking hold that the severity of the crisis in ECO countries is higher than in the West. On the contrary, we must promulgate the idea that ECO has seen the least damage from the crisis. Westerners point to the empty half of ECO and plan to highlight its weaknesses. That is why we must promote ECO’s successes in various fields.”
The classified foreign ministry document viewed the ECO summit as an opportunity for the Iranian regime to exploit it in the context of its nuclear program. A section of the report says:
“We recommend that responsible authorities make an announcement that Iran’s nuclear cooperation with ECO members and their interest in this regard is great; This issue is specifically important because the president announced readiness at last year’s summit to provide help to other ECO members.”
The Consequences of ECO
The Iranian regime’s foreign ministry’s classified report confesses to the failure of ECO and adds: “Several factors contributed to ECO’s failure, of which the lack of economic homogeneity was the most important. Border and ethnic differences, domestic issues, civil wars, and most importantly the countries’ dedication of a minor role to ECO, has rendered ECO unsuccessful. Out of the 500 billion dollar foreign trade volume in ECO countries, only four percent occurs among the members themselves, and the rest with countries outside this region. Turkey views ECO as less important than Europe and the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation. At the same time, the dependence of some ECO members on powers outside the region is among the factors that contribute to divergent views in ECO.
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Reza Shafa is an expert on the Iranian regime's Intelligence networks, both in Iran and abroad. He has done extensive research on Iranian Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS) also known as VEVAK, Intelligence Office of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Qods Force among others. Currently he is a contributor to NCRI website.
