Iran and Nicaragua held talks in February about stepping up their military cooperation as a way to
counter US influence
in Latin America, according to an intelligence update contained in a cache of leaked documents that appears to be based on wiretaps collected by the CIA.
The trip of an Iranian delegation to Nicaragua that month was no secret.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Sergei Lavrov (R), presents the Special Representative of the President of Nicaragua for Trade, Economic and Investment Cooperation with Russia, Laureano Ortega (C), with the Order of Friendship.
EFE/EPA/MAXIM SHIPENKOV / POOL
Both the Nicaraguan and Iranian authorities hyped up the visit, though their statements were vague on details, generally focused on trade,
and
made no mention of any talk of
military cooperation.
But the intelligence report, dated February 23, notes that the delegation, led by Iran's Foreign Minister
Hossein Amir Abdollahian
, had met with senior Nicaraguan military commanders.
According to the report, the commanders told Amir Abdollahian that Nicaragua opposed "perceived efforts by the United States to expand its influence in Latin America and expressed its willingness to
collaborate with Tehran
and other like-minded countries."
The paragraph-long intelligence update was included in a series of leaked images that were posted on a
Discord
server , and provided to
The New York Times
.
US officials, while acknowledging that the documents in an earlier series of leaked documents posted on the same server were authentic, cautioned that some had been
doctored
, while others were out of date or inaccurate.
The Times described the new batch of documents to multiple US officials, who neither disputed the information nor confirmed that they were authentic.
Iran has long sought closer relations with Latin American countries, particularly those it considers to be outside the US sphere of influence, while Tehran tries to break the international isolation imposed on it by Washington and its Western allies.
Over the past two decades, Iran has signed a series of trade deals and promised
other investments
with countries in the region, though, constrained by Tehran's own economic difficulties, it has a mixed record of delivering on them.
Iran stated that Amir Abdollahian had discussed
economic, trade and energy cooperation
during his trip to Nicaragua, but did not mention any meetings with military figures.
But the official announcement did not hide that the grudge that both countries share against the United States was boosting the bilateral relationship.
In recent years, the Biden administration has imposed sanctions on the government and family of Nicaraguan President
Daniel Ortega
as the country descended into autocracy and cracked down on opponents in civil society, the Church, and the media. communication.
Both Nicaragua and Iran experienced revolutions in 1979.
That year, the Iranians overthrew the US-backed shah in what became known as the
Islamic Revolution
, taking 52 American hostages at the US embassy in Tehran.
It was also the year that Nicaragua's Sandinista revolutionary movement overthrew the country's president, a key US ally in the region.
According to the Iranian state news agency
IRNA
, Ortega, who was a member of the Sandinista movement, met with Amir Abdollahian during the February visit, noting that their two countries "had a common enemy" against whom they had fought the same year and at the same time. that they had managed to defeat.
Amir Abdollahian, according to IRNA, said that the name Nicaragua connotes "independence and the search for freedom in the minds of the Iranians, because Nicaragua has risen up and is rising up against imperialism."
Ortega's son,
Laureano Ortega
, who manages Nicaragua's foreign relations and most important diplomatic agreements, had welcomed 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 towards development and prosperity," declared Laureano Ortega.
He also pointed out that, in the last year, "we had important Iranian delegations here in our country and we also had Nicaraguan delegations that visited Iran."
c.2023 The New York Times Company
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