Gambia Severs All Ties With Iran

West Africa  |  11.23.10   By Kevin Johnson-Azuara

Gambia has severed its ties with Iran, ordering all the Iranians representing their government to leave the country within 48 hours.

The west African nation’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday that “all government of the Gambia projects and programs, which were implemented in co-operation with the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran have been cancelled.”

Gambia gave no reason for cutting ties with Iran, which has been involved in many projects in what is said to be the smallest country on the African continent.

“The Gambia government hereby requests all Iranian nationals representing the interest of the government of Iran in the Gambia to leave the country within 48 hours from the effective date stipulated through a notification issued to the government of Iran,” the statement said.

Both ostracized internationally, with Iran under sanctions for its nuclear programme and Gambia accused of rights abuses, the two nations have repeatedly declared their support for each other.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president  said in 2006 that both nations were under pressure from “bullying” powers while Gambia has supported Iran’s right to develop its nuclear capabilities.

Ahmadinejad paid a visit to the country in November 2009 to cement ties.

The two countries were mentioned in a communique last week when Nigeria reported the discovery of an illegal arms shipment from Iran, including rockets and grenades, to the UN Security Council.

Iran, under four sets of UN sanctions over its disputed nuclear program including a ban on arms sales, said the shipment was by a private company and was on its way to a west African country, later named as Gambia.

Essa Bokarr Sey, a former Gambian ambassador to the United States, told the Voice Of America that Gambia President Yayah Jammeh might have severed relations with Iran to cover up his reported involvement .

“The thing is there are three factors here. People order arms to protect their sovereignty, which is no crime. Sometimes you will order for re-exportation and that is where the question mark starts. Why would you do that?” he said.

Sey said Iran is not the first country that President Jammeh has used for his own purposes.

“There was a time when President Jammeh’s endless ways of doing things out of euphoria pushed him to a point where he named a whole avenue after Colonel (Muammar) Gaddafi (of Libya) because they were very close at that time. When relations between him and Muammar Gaddafi soured, he changed that very avenue back to its original name, which was a British name.

“So, Iran is not the first victim. Whenever there is a lot of noise and he feels scared and he has been unearthed and identified as somebody who was meeting behind the curtains, he would react in this way to clean himself up”

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