Special for New York Times GlobeLiveMedia.
The two countries had found common ground in opposing “perceived U.S. efforts to expand influence in Latin America,” according to an intelligence update based on CIA intercepts.
Iran and Nicaragua held talks in February about the possibility of boosting their military cooperation as a way to counter US influence in Latin America, according to updated intelligence contained in a series of leaked documents that appear to be based on telephone taps collected by the CIA. .
It was no secret that an Iranian delegation visited Nicaragua that month. Both Nicaraguan and Iranian authorities have touted the visit, though their announcements do not spell out specifics, focus largely on trade, and do not mention discussions of possible military cooperation.
But the intelligence report, dated February 23, notes that the delegation, led by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, met with senior Nicaraguan military officers. According to the report, the commanders told Amir Abdollahian that Nicaragua opposed “perceived U.S. efforts to expand its influence in Latin America and expressed a willingness to engage with Tehran and other like-minded countries.” .
The one-paragraph information update was included in a series of leaked images that were posted to a Discord server and provided to The New York Times. Several US officials, while acknowledging that documents from a previous set of leaked documents posted on the same server were genuine, warned that some had been tampered with, while others were outdated or contained errors.
The New York Times described the new batch of documents to several US officials, who did not dispute the information or confirm their authenticity.
Iran has long sought to strengthen its relations with Latin American countries, particularly those it considers outside the US sphere of influence, as Tehran seeks to break the international isolation imposed by Washington and its Western allies. Over the past few decades, Iran has signed a series of trade agreements and pledged further investment with countries in the region, although, constrained by Tehran’s economic woes, it has a patchy record.
Iran claimed that Amir Abdollahian discussed economic, trade and energy cooperation during his trip to Nicaragua, but did not mention any meetings with military personnel. However, the official announcement did not hide the fact that the two countries’ shared grudges against the United States were pushing the bilateral relationship forward.
In los últimos años, el gobierno de Biden ha impuesto sanciones al gobierno y la familia del presidente de Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, a medida que el país ha sumido en una autocracia y ha reprimido a sus opositores en la sociedad civil, la Iglesia y communication means.
Both Nicaragua and Iran experienced revolutions in 1979. That year, the Iranians overthrew the US-backed Shah in what came to be known as the Islamic Revolution, taking 52 American hostages from the United States Embassy in Tehran. It was also the year the Nicaraguan Sandinista revolutionary movement overthrew the country’s president, a key US ally in the region.
According to IRNA, Iran’s state news agency Ortega, who was part of the Sandinista movement, met Amir Abdollahian during the February visit and noted that the two countries “had a common enemy” against whom they had fought the war. same year and which they had succeeded in defeating.
Amir Abdollahian, IRNA reported, claimed that the name Nicaragua evoked “the search for independence and freedom in the minds of Iranians, because Nicaragua has faced and continues to face imperialism”. .
Ortega’s son, Laureano Ortega, who handles Nicaragua’s most important foreign relations and diplomatic affairs, greeted Amir Abdollahian with a message of friendship, according to El 19, a newspaper linked to the Nicaraguan government.
“We are countries with sister revolutions that defend our right to choose our own path to development and prosperity,” Laureano Ortega said, according to the outlet. He also pointed out that, last year, “we had important Iranian delegations here in our country and we also had the visit of Nicaraguan missions in Iran”.
Viviane Yee
She is the head of the Cairo office. Covers issues of politics, society and culture in the Middle East and North Africa. He previously resided in Beirut, Lebanon, and New York, where he wrote about New York City, New York politics, and immigration.
International relationships
Defense and military forces
Iran
Nicaragua
Latin America
United States international relations
Ortega, Daniel
Amir Abdullahian, Hossein