A research think-tank has warned SA that cosying up to controversial Iran threatens the country’s stability and diplomatic standing in the world.
The Middle East Africa Research Institute (MEARI) is a research think-tank focused on analysing complex dynamics between the Middle East and Africa on issues pertaining to history, geopolitics, economics, terrorism, governance and culture.
The MEARI said its report, titled “Ties to Tehran: South Africa’s Democracy and its Relationship with Iran”, presented a critical examination of SA’s “enduring and often controversial relationship with Iran”.
“At its heart lies a fundamental contradiction: SA, a country that has built its post-apartheid identity on the pillars of democracy and human rights, continues to engage in strategic partnerships with regimes that undermine those very values,” the MEARI said.
Iran is part of the expanded Brics bloc with SA. In May 2025, Iran exported R11.1m and imported R8.48m from SA, according to online data platform the Observatory of Economic Complexity.
SA exports to Iran were $19.62m during 2024, according to the UN Comtrade database on international trade. Africa’s largest mobile network operator, MTN, is among SA companies operating in Iran. The MTN Group holds a 49% investment in that country’s second-largest mobile network operator, Irancell.
In its report, the MEARI said while commercial and strategic ties between the two countries remained robust, the MTN investment in Irancell was “entangled in allegations of bribery, manipulation of SA foreign policy, and violations of international sanctions”.
“While the company denies any wrongdoing, the scandal has cast a long shadow over its reputation and over SA’s role in the matter. It remains a matter of litigation. The international implications of SA’s engagement with Iran are substantial.”
SA’s alignment with Tehran had strained relations with Western allies and raised concern about sanction evasion and financial grey listing, the report said, warning: “These associations threaten SA’s economic stability and global diplomatic standing. SA’s ongoing alliance with Iran illustrates the tension between ideological solidarity and democratic principle.”
The relationship between Pretoria and Tehran increasingly appears to contradict “SA’s professed values. In maintaining ties with a regime accused of terrorism, repression, and nuclear ambition, SA risks its credibility on the global stage — and willingly places itself on the wrong side of history”.
The report dismissed Iran as a republic characterised by “widespread human rights violations, systemic repression of dissent, and the brutal enforcement of religious norms”.
“Its foreign policy has become increasingly aggressive, relying on a network of militant proxies — commonly referred to as the ‘Axis of Resistance’ — to project influence across the Middle East, often at the cost of regional stability.”
It warned that SA’s continued diplomatic and economic engagement with such “a regime reveals striking contradictions in its foreign policy”.
“While the SA constitution champions democratic governance and individual freedoms, its foreign alignments frequently favour authoritarian regimes, especially those that share its anti-Western, pan-African, and South-South ideological leanings. These alliances challenge SA’s image as a principled actor on the global stage.”
The report criticised SA for expressing “profound concern” about attacks by Israel against military targets in Iran, in June “but was silent about retaliatory attacks by Iran against civilian targets in Israel, or Iran’s overt support of the Hamas invasion of Israel on 7 October 2023”.
The rights enshrined in the SA constitution were not consistent with Iran’s “theocratic rule, which since its foundation in 1979 has stood accused of human rights violations, atrocities, and genocide”.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran cannot be described as a model of ‘a better world for all’, and contradicts the SA government’s stated values of human rights and democracy in every way.”
The report states that for Iran, building relations with SA, which it described as an emerging regional and international power, “advanced its own national interests, strengthening relations with countries in the Global South, and thereby reducing reliance on Western powers that shunned or sanctioned it”.
“SA and Iran therefore had common interests in promoting economic and political regionalism within frameworks such as the Indian Ocean Rim Association, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the Afro-Asian solidarity movement.... The ideological hostility of SA towards Western hegemony, and solidarity with Iran, is reflected in its consistent and vocal condemnation of sanctions imposed against Iran.”
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