Khasab, Oman – Trade between this tip of the Arabian Peninsula and nearby Iran – lying only 50 kilometres across the Strait of Hormuz – goes back millennia, according to Marc Valeri, a political scientist and expert on the Gulf monarchies.
In recent years, that trade has been illicit and conducted by smugglers, given the long-standing international sanctions on Iran. But smugglers may face a hard time now that the sanctions have been lifted, due to Iran’s compliance with the terms of the nuclear deal signed last year.
Zia, a 23-year-old Afghan who illegally migrated from Iran to Oman in 2010, was lying down in a park when his phone suddenly vibrated. “This was one of my clients in Iran,” he said, as he juggled between fluent Arabic and Farsi. “He was asking me to send him five air conditioners.”
Zia lives in Musandam, an Omani province that borders the United Arab Emirates and is the closest point on the Arabian Peninsula to Iran. It was midnight, and Zia had already been working all day long. “My job is to receive the merchandise coming from Dubai or Ras al-Khaimah [in the United Arab Emirates], to store it in several warehouses – and then, in the morning, I load it in pick-up trucks and give it to Iranian smugglers who come to the port on speedboats,” explained Zia.
The types of goods smuggled to Iran include phones, televisions, clothing, shoes, cigarettes, household appliances, and cas, among others.
