In the early 19th century, the Al Qasimi clan posed a formidable challenge to the British East India Company. They were labeled as a dangerous tribe of pirates with whom the British were forced to fight while navigating the Indian Ocean. In Emirati folklore, however, they are hailed as heroes and daredevil seafarers who were focused on protecting their shores and also expanded trade and culture on both sides of the Persian Gulf. And they are suddenly of newfound diplomatic relevance today.
The Al Qasimis’ control over the three strategic islands of Abu Masa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb in the 19th century is the basis of the United Arab Emirates’ continued claim over that territory, which was annexed by Iran in 1971. And the resulting diplomatic ambiguity may be the key to an ultimately peaceful resolution to the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program.
Just before Israel attacked Iran and intentionally disrupted the ongoing nuclear diplomacy, both Washington and Tehran were honing in on the idea of having a multinational consortium pursue nuclear energy development in the region. Some reports suggested it was an Iranian suggestion while others attributed it to Steve Witkoff, the United States’ special envoy to the Middle East.
Under such a consortium, different countries in the region—including Iran, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia—would enrich uranium at a common location. This would allow regional rivals to keep an eye on each other while all activity would be supervised by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency and beholden to U.S. investments.
In 2023, Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian diplomat and former member of its nuclear negotiation team, recommended that countries in the Persian Gulf “could establish a Multilateral Enrichment Arrangement consortium” to provide uranium enrichment services and other fuel cycle products.
Foreign Policy spoke with several experts who hailed the idea of a consortium as a panacea to Western and regional suspicions around Iran’s nuclear intentions and as a face-saving solution for Iran, which has insisted it won’t give up its rights to develop and use nuclear power.
However, the path to establishing such a consortium is riddled with obstacles.
The first challenge is the location. The Americans want any such consortium to be established outside Iran, to prevent Iran from converting nuclear energy produced for civilian use toward military applications. Iran has said on the record that it would welcome a consortium as long as it is on Iranian soil. “It cannot be a substitute for enrichment within Iran,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said.
It is in this context that the three islands under Iranian control, but claimed by the UAE, a U.S. and Saudi ally, have popped up as possible locations for the consortium.
The Greater and Lesser Tunbs are small, with no known inhabitants; there is only a tiny population reported to be living in Abu Musa. Iranians have a military and naval presence on all three islands, which strategically jut out in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow strip of water with Iran on one side and the UAE on the other.
Oil tankers and ships carrying trade goods must pass between these islands as they traverse the world’s biggest oil highway, which is controlled by Iranian boots on the ground.
The presence of regional actors on these islands—by way of the suggested consortium—could presumably have a stabilizing effect on maritime trade, since every time tensions with Iran erupt, there are fears it may block the Strait of Hormuz to extract concessions and choke global oil supplies.
But the dispute over the islands lingers. According to the Emirati government, Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi unlawfully annexed the islands just a few days before the British allowed the official formation of the UAE as an independent country in 1971.
The UAE has since disputed Iran’s claim at the United Nations Security Council and called for a resolution through direct talks with Iran or arbitration via the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It says it will accept the ICJ’s decision, whether it’s in favor of or against Emirati interests, particularly the descendants of the Al Qasimi, which rule the emirates of Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah.
Iran, meanwhile, has said that the Al Qasimi leaders were acting as Persian subjects when they governed the islands, doing so on Iran’s behalf. Tehran is unwilling to discuss the matter on any international platform.
There is wide support for the Emirati approach to resolve the dispute peacefully. Even Russia and China—Iran’s allies against the West—have backed the UAE and its stance toward a negotiated resolution.
In July 2023, when Russia called for a settlement of the dispute in accordance with “the rules of international law and the United Nations Charter,” Tehran was livid and asked Moscow to “correct its position.” Iran has supplied Russia with Shahed drones—a lethal weapon that has left a trail of death and destruction in Ukraine—and even helped Russians produce drones inside their country.
The dispute over the islands rakes up a storm every now and again, reflecting a deeper animosity and insecurity between the Arabs and the Iranians.
It all feeds into historic Arab-Persian rivalries, which have lately been magnified by the sectarian power struggle for regional dominance between the mostly Sunni Saudi Arabia and the mostly Shia Iran, as well as Iran’s support to regional militias and bombing of Arab oil assets.
In 2012, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Abu Musa, the UAE recalled its ambassador from Tehran. In 2017, when Sarah al-Amiri, an Emirati of Iranian roots, was appointed as UAE’s minister of state for advanced sciences, people on social media questioned her allegiance to the state. There have been several waves of migration on both sides of the Gulf, but the dispute over the islands can be a reason for discrimination against Emiratis of Persian origin.
But despite the dispute’s heavy social costs among people with often overlapping values and cultures, there is no immediate end in sight to the issue. However, experts have argued that the idea of a multinational consortium is riddled with more problems.
When Mousavian suggested a multinational framework, he cited Urenco—a Western consortium that provides uranium enrichment and nuclear waste disposal services in Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States—as a model. But some experts have pointed out that technological know-how can slip out of such consortiums and lead to nuclear proliferation. The so-called father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, worked at Urenco in the Netherlands, where he stole the centrifuge design and later provided it to Iran, Libya, and North Korea.
Iran has its own doubts. In the 1970s, it was part of a similar consortium, but with European states and led by France. Iran claimed that it never received the low-enriched uranium it paid for after the United States put pressure on France.
Some experts have argued that Iran is likely to agree to a consortium if it is on an Iranian island such as Qeshm or Kish, both of which are undisputed Iranian islands and often advertised as holiday destinations by Tehran.
Ali Vaez, director of the International Crisis Group’s Iran Project, said the idea to set up a consortium in one of the three islands disputed by Iran and the UAE added “another layer of complication” and instead advocated for Qeshm, “one of the biggest islands in the Persian Gulf,” as a possible location.
“I think the magic formula is for Iran and the United States to meet halfway [with] Iran agreeing that it would no longer have sovereign national enrichment,” he said. “It would have enrichment in a consortium, and the United States agreeing that that consortium could be on an island belonging to Iran.”