The past fourteen years has witnessed ceaseless and untiring efforts by Iran to capture a share of the water market in the countries that make up the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC). This article explores Iran's motives and goals in targeting the PGCC water market. It also examines the reasons for the failure of Iran's negotiations with Qatar and their success with Kuwait. Finally, it considers why Iran was slow in responding to Kuwaiti requests for a rapid conclusion of the deal. With respect to the first question, it is argued that Iran's goals and motives have been primarily political rather than economic. Regarding the second, the article contends that the failure of negotiations with Qatar stemmed from Iran not accommodation the influential political actors in the Emirate. The talks with Kuwait succeeded because Iran did bring the influential actors on board. Iran's failure to conclude the talks with Kuwait more speedily is attributed to Tehran's concerns about the domestic repercussions of the deal.

Background and objectives: Several studies have been conducted to improve the paper properties and this research is for coating process in the converting operations of papers. Improvement of paper properties can cause a variety of its applications. In general, the desirable properties are expressed by barrier, mechanical and optical properties. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the GCC coatings on two types of base papers with two levels of binder.Materials and methods: For this purpose, two different base papers (kraft liner and fluting from Mazandaran pulp and paper mill), immersion and bar coating methods as well as a binder (PVA) at two levels were used. Coating material had 20% solid content, including GCC (100 parts), dispersant (0.3 parts) and PVA (6 and 12 parts). Two suspensions with low and high binder were named no.1 and no.2 combination respectively. Dip coating was performed in the two suspensions for one minute, and the bar coating was carried out by the bench coater with the same combinations. Physical characteristics such as air resistance, thickness, mass, brightness and water absorption (Cobb60) for control and treated paper were determined. After the calculation, the coating weight and grammage was obtained, and then these data were entered to SPSS 16.0 software for analysis of variance.Results: In comparison to the control group, all the treated fluting papers showed significant difference in grammage, thickness and coating weight. The significant effect was observed on air resistance of fluting and kraft liner papers at 5% level. However, there were not any differences in bar coating method on air resistance at 1% level in fluting papers with low PVA and so in the kraft liner papers with high PVA. The amount of water absorption in the treated fluting samples with low and high PVA using bar coating method indicated a significant difference at 5% level compared with treated samples in immersion method and control group. However, the Cobb60 significant reduction at 1% level was seen in the low binder combination with rod coating method. In terms of lower water absorption, rod coating with high PVA was much better than the other treatments. Due to more coating weight in the immersion method, the value of brightness increased in the immersed samples. Except rod method with low PVA, other treatments created significant differences (5%) in brightness between the treated fluting papers and control group. Kraft paper samples showed significant differences in brightness at 1% with both suspensions in immersion method, but kraft samples of bar method with low PVA were significant at 5% level. Correlation coefficients between the coating weight and air resistance, thickness, brightness as well as grammage were 0.549, 0.734, 0.687 and 0.489 in the tested papers respectively.Conclusion: According to information of this research, changes of water absorption in samples were low, but the rod method reduced water absorption and had positive influence on paper barrier properties.Brightness of studied kraft liner was pretty good and the brightness of this brown paper reached to 57.Even in cases such as water absorption and brightness, the first composition (low binder) was better than the other suspension. The air resistance improved in all treatments and increment of this measurement is more evident in the fluting papers and the immersion method. Due to the improvement of physical properties, barrier and brightness in treated paper, made value-added papers in these samples compared to the control groups.

fDI can create employment and reduce poverty, increase the host country’ s export capacity causing the developing country to increase its foreign exchange earnings. The aim of this study is to investigate whether FDI affect economic growth in GCC countries over the period 1980-2014 using ARDL approaches. The empirical results show that the FDI is one of the major drivers of economic growth in Iran and GCC countries. The result of bound test indicates that there is a long-run steady-state relationship between FDI and GDP in Iran and for individual country of GCC. Also results of Granger-causality test imply that a bidirectional causalities from FDI to real GDP growth in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE; unidirectional causalities from FDI to real GDP growth rate in Iran and Bahrain and no causality between FDI and real GDP growth rate in Kuwait and Oman.

The Middle East is one of the most important, sensitive and complex regions in the world. What makes this region stand out in all its dimensions and areas is its unique political, economic, cultural-social, geographical and geopolitical features. These conditions have somehow overshadowed the structural equations of the region under the dialectical influence of the interaction of political, economic, cultural-social and security components and power in relation to other actors in the region, so that the increase of cooperation of these governments in this interaction space, eventually led to the formation of an organization called the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council in 1981 in the Persian Gulf regional system. The Persian Gulf Cooperation Council is one of the most important regional organizations in the regional environment of Iran, and Iran's policies have always played an important role in the orientations and goals of the council. In this regard, the members of the Council considered the developments in the Middle East, especially the establishment of a democratic and Shiite government in Iraq and the developments of the Islamic Awakening as a shift in the balance of power in favor of Iran and increasing power and influence in the regions of Iran. Movements in the regions of Iran see their lives and survival in danger. This has caused them to use all their facilities and tools to counter the growing power of the regions of Iran. Understanding the real tensions between Iran and the Saudi-led PGCC countries along the Shiite-Sunni lines in the PGCC has been shaped most regionally and internationally. These differences also undermine Iran's efforts to improve relations with council governments in recent years. Since Hassan Rouhani came to power, he has repeatedly proposed peace initiatives for Saudi-led PGCC member states. Not only has this pragmatic policy not been very successful, but Iran-Saudi Arabia relations have become much colder than before. Relations between Iran and the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council have worsened since the Barjam nuclear deal. Iran's regional expansion and the siege of Qatar, while changing the power structure in the Persian Gulf region, created more tension and insecurity in the region and increased the scope of confrontation between Iran and Saudi Arabia, especially after Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the UN Security Council and the announcement of "maximum pressure policy. " He turned against Iran. Although several smaller Gulf states have taken a more balanced approach to their relations with Iran, the main policy of the council is by Saudi Arabia with a new configuration of Middle East policy that sees a rare tripartite convergence of interests was regulated against Iran between Saudi Arabia and Israel. and the United States under Trump. According to the actions of the Cooperation Council and foreign interventionist powers, Iran's policy towards the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council is mainly based on three considerations: First, it hopes to turn enemies into friends, improves Iran's isolated position, and resolves the security-geopolitical dilemma in the Persian Gulf region. Second, Tehran's goal is to develop trade relations with its Persian Gulf neighbors and promote Iran's economic development, and third, to cooperate with Iran to reduce US influence in the Persian Gulf and weaken its hostility to Iran. Therefore, this article uses a method of analytical research to review the regional and international policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran from a historical perspective to explain the relations with the neighbors of the Cooperation Council in the post-Iran-Iraq period. The question that arises is what has been the main component and axis of Iran's policy after the Holy Defense, especially during the presidency of Mr. Rouhani towards the PGCC? . This study shows that during Mr. Rouhani's administration, improving relations with the PGCC has been the main focus of Iran's efforts to improve security in the Persian Gulf region. However, a number of structural obstacles, historical distrust, and Iran's movements in the region have severely hostile Tehran's relations with the Cooperation Council and have further increased insecurity in the region as Iran's growing influence in the Arab region coincides with its anti-hegemonic policy. This means that Iran's peace initiatives with the Cooperation Council have faced major obstacles, and Iran's success in reducing tensions and promoting peace plans with the PGCC has not been useful.

One of the main challenges of productive economic activities in the country is the limitation of access to financial resources despite the high level of total liquidity of the country as well as international capacities in the field of financing. This situation indicates incomplete and ineffective liquidity and credit management. One of the effective means of directing internal and external liquidity to productive economic activities are sukuk, which have been used by Islamic countries. This study deals with the issue of whether financing through international sukuk has had a significant impact on the growth of Islamic countries that this experience can be used in order to finance productive activities of the country. In this regard, the Gulf cooperation council countries have been investigated during the period of 2001-2020 using the combined data regression approach. The results show that the issuance of sukuk has a significant effect on the economic growth of the studied countries, and if properly planned and politicized, this instrument can be a breakthrough in Iran.