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Mohammad Javad enters a fashionable shop in well-to-do north Tehran with his mother. For the first time ever he wants a necktie, long banned in Iran as a symbol of Western decadence.

The 27-year-old dentist said he opted for this clothing accessory in hopes of looking his best during the first meeting with his future in-laws.

"In our society, wearing a tie is like wearing a mask before COVID-19 hit," he said as the salesman adjusted his suit. "People would look at you differently because the negative view still remains.

"I think a man looks chic with one. Unfortunately, we Iranians have imposed strange and unnecessary restrictions on ourselves. It'll take time for that to change, but hopefully it will."

Dress rules have stoked strong passions in Iran, especially restrictions on women who have long been required to wear modest clothing and headscarves.

Iran was gripped by unrest, labeled "riots" by the authorities, after the September 16 death in custody of Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini, 22, following her arrest for an alleged violation of the country's strict dress code for women.

Iran banned the tie for men after the 1979 overthrow of the US-backed monarch as a symbol of Western culture. Although it has made a slow comeback since, government officials and most Iranian men continue to shun the cravat.

The upmarket Zagros shop on the capital's Nelson Mandela Boulevard however displays rows of ties in different colors and in wool, cotton or silk.

"We sell around 100 a month," said deputy store manager Mohammad Arjmand, 35. "We import them mostly from Turkey, but some are also made in Iran. "Customers buy them for ceremonies or for work. In this neighborhood, you will find that two out of 10 people wear one. These days more people are wearing ties compared with previous decades."

The recent unrest "had no effect on our sales", said branch manager Ali Fattahi, 38. "Our customers who were wearing ties before still do so and come to us regularly to buy new ones."

Iran's Shiite clerics who came to power in 1979 banned the tie because, in their eyes, it was un-Islamic, a sign of decadence, a symbol of the cross and the quintessence of Western dress imposed by the shah, said one trader who asked not to be identified.

After vanishing for decades, ties reappeared in some shop windows during the era of reformist president Mohammad Khatami from 1997 to 2005.

Today, government ministers, senior civil servants and heads of state-owned companies don't wear ties with their suits and opt for shirts with buttoned, open or Mao collars.

Lawyer Masoud Molapanah said "wearing a tie is certainly not a crime" under the constitution or Islamic sharia law. "But there are dress restrictions in certain places such as on television."

Javad, while choosing his tie, was accompanied by his chador-clad mother, who not only encourages him to wear one but also asked the salesmen to teach her how to tie it properly for her son.

"At one time, some sought to remove it," said the 50-year-old state employee, with a smile. "The reason given was the rejection of any sign of Westernization.

"But then it would have been necessary to also remove the suit and return to the traditional dress worn at the time of the Qajar dynasty" of 1794-1925, she said, adding this "was obviously impossible".

The head of a nearby Pierre Cardin store, Mehran Sharifi, 35, said many young people now are enthusiastic about the necktie.

"Ties give prestige to people -- a lot of people buy them," said this son and grandson of a tailor, pointing to a century-old photograph on the wall of his grandfather wearing a tie. "Customers come to buy suits and we match ties to their choice of clothing. Others buy them as a gift."

In some classy cafes, the black tie or bowtie are part of the uniform of waiters, and doctors in several Tehran districts have also sported ties.

The fashion accessory is almost compulsory for Iranians working at embassies and in some foreign companies, although most remove it when they go out on the street.

Sadeq, 39, employed at the Japanese embassy, said he puts on his tie when he gets to work "because wearing a tie in public is not very common in Iran".

"If you dress up like that and walk in the street, you'll definitely turn a few heads. People will think you're either a foreigner or someone headed to a very formal meeting with foreigners."

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Once banned, now back: Iran sees timid return of neckties - Japan Today

They are the last survivors of an international crisis that hobbled Jimmy Carters presidency and may have cost him re-election. Many are now in their 80s.

With the former president gravely ill in hospice care, some of the 52 Americans who were held hostage in Iran for 444 days are looking back on Mr. Carters legacy with a mix of frustration, sadness and gratitude.

Many feel neglected by the government, which has paid them only about a quarter of the $4.4 million that they were each promised by Congress in 2015, after decades of lobbying for compensation, said their lawyer, V. Thomas Lankford. Some endured physical and mental abuse, including mock executions, during the hostage crisis. About half have died.

Last week, their ordeal was thrust back into the news with the account of a covert effort to delay their release until after the 1980 presidential election in a bid to help the campaign of Mr. Carters Republican challenger, Ronald Reagan.

A former Texas politician, Ben Barnes, told The New York Times that he had toured the Middle East that summer with John B. Connally Jr., the former Texas governor, who told regional leaders that Mr. Reagan would win and give the Iranians a better deal. Mr. Connally, a former Democrat turned Republican, was angling for a cabinet position.

Mr. Barnes, 84, said that he was speaking out now because history needs to know that this happened.

He told The Times that he did not know if the message that Mr. Connally gave to Middle Eastern leaders ever reached the Iranians, or whether it influenced them. Mr. Connally died in 1993. Nor was it clear if Mr. Reagan knew about the trip. Mr. Barnes said Mr. Connally had briefed William J. Casey, the chairman of Mr. Reagans campaign and later the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in an airport lounge after the trip.

The account stirred anger among some of the former hostages, while others dismissed his story of election sabotage as not credible. They are a diverse group that includes former diplomats, retired military officers and academics, and members of both major political parties.

Its nice that Mr. Barnes is trying to soothe his soul during the last years of his life, said Barry Rosen, 79, who was press attach at the embassy in Tehran when it was overrun on Nov. 4, 1979. But for the hostages who went through hell, he has not helped us at all. He has made it just as bad or worse.

Mr. Rosen, who lives in New York, said that Mr. Barnes should have come forward 43 years ago, given the decades of speculation about political interference.

Its the definition of treason, he said, knowing that there was a possibility that the Carter administration might have been able to negotiate us out of Iran earlier.

Kathryn Koob, 84, of Waterloo, Iowa, who was the director of an Iranian-American cultural program when she was taken hostage, said, If somebody wanted to be so cruel as to use us for political gain, thats on their conscience, and they have to deal with it.

That Mr. Connally could have been engaged in political skulduggery was hardly shocking after Watergate, said John W. Limbert, 80, who was a political officer at the embassy when he was taken hostage.

Its basically just confirmation of what we strongly suspected all along, Mr. Limbert said. We should not be surprised about this in American politics people willing to stoop to anything.

He credited Mr. Carter with showing patience during the crisis, even if voters blamed him for mishandling the showdown with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian leader whose followers stormed the embassy after the Carter administration admitted Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the deposed shah of Iran, to the United States for medical treatment.

He basically sacrificed his presidency to get us out alive, Mr. Limbert said.

But Kevin Hermening, a certified financial planner in Mosinee, Wis., who was a Marine Corps sergeant guarding the embassy, said that he did not believe Mr. Barness account and that, even if it were true, the effort would not have influenced his captors.

The Iranians were very clear that they were not going to release us while President Carter was in office, said Mr. Hermening, 63. He was despised by the mullahs and those people who followed the Ayatollah.

And Don Cooke, 68, of Gaithersburg, Md., a retired Foreign Service officer who was vice consul at the embassy, called Mr. Barness account mildly amusing.

It suggested, he said, that there were these other dark forces that were sabotaging our efforts to get these hostages free, and I just dont buy that.

Mr. Cooke still blames Mr. Carter for the crisis. He said the president should have cleared the embassy of its personnel before he admitted the shah or have refused to allow the shah to enter the country.

When Mr. Carter flew to Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany to greet the freed hostages, Mr. Cooke said he snubbed the former president, staying on the phone with his parents as Mr. Carter put a hand on his back. He handed the phone to Mr. Carter, who spoke to his mother.

The reason we were released was because Ronald Reagan was elected president, Mr. Cooke said. The Iranians were clearly afraid of Reagan. No question about that. And they had every right to be.

The hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981, minutes after Mr. Reagan took office.

It was the end of an anguished chapter. Network news anchors had kept nightly counts of how long the hostages had been in captivity, accompanied by martial music and America Held Hostage graphics. People across the country tied yellow ribbons around trees in a show of support for the hostages.

After months of fruitless negotiations, Mr. Carter had authorized a rescue mission in April 1980 that ended in disaster when a helicopter crashed into a plane in the Iranian desert. Eight service members were killed, and their charred bodies were displayed by Iranian officials.

In the end, Mr. Carter did not pull off the pre-election October surprise that some in Mr. Reagans orbit feared. It was only after Mr. Carters defeat that his outgoing administration struck a deal that released billions of dollars of frozen Iranian assets.

Those assets were the weapon that kept us alive, said Mr. Rosen, the former press attach. Referring to Mr. Carter, he added, I think the thing he did and did absolutely right was to free the American hostages without us getting murdered.

The Barnes account cast a new light on these long-ago events, troubling David M. Roeder, a retired colonel who was the deputy Air Force attach at the embassy. Mr. Roeder said that he had repeatedly told his captors that if Mr. Reagan won, they would be dealing with a much tougher person.

I have come to the conclusion perhaps because I want to that hopefully President Reagan was unaware that this was going on, said Mr. Roeder, 83, of Pinehurst, N.C.

But, he added, I gained a great deal more respect for President Carter because Ive seen what he went through with us in captivity.

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Former Iran Hostages Are Divided on Jimmy Carter and a Sabotage Claim - The New York Times

Several Bahraini sources also announced that recently a delegation from Iran traveled to Bahrain and visited the Iranian embassy in Manama.

Recently,Bahraini sources with knowledge of the attempts to restore diplomatic ties between Manama and Tehran told Sputnik thata delegation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran visited the Iranian Embassy along with an Iranian parliamentary delegation that participated in the 146th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Manama on March 12.

According to those Bahraini sources, after the visit of Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi to Saudi Arabia, meetings and exchanges of visits between Iran and Bahrain are scheduled to begin.

Earlier, some informed sources had told Sputnik that important talks between Bahrain and Iran are underway on the restoration of their bilateral relations.

After the recent agreement between Tehran and Riyadh to restore relations and reopen their embassies, Saudi King Salman invited the Iranian president to visit Saudi Arabia.

On March 19 Mohammad Jamshidi, the political deputy of the Iranian President's Office, posted on Twitter that the Saudi King had officially invited the Iranian President to visit Riyadh, and Ebrahim Raeisi had accepted his invitation.

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Delegation from Bahrain reportedly to visit Iran - Mehr News Agency - English Version

During the event, Waleed Alreshiadan, the Saudi envoy to Dushanbe, met with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad-Taqi Saberi. (FarsNews_Agency/Twitter)

Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English

Published: 23 March ,2023: 10:59 PM GST Updated: 23 March ,2023: 11:52 PM GST

Saudi Arabias ambassador to Tajikistan has attended a celebration at Irans embassy in the Tajik capital to mark Nowruz the Persian New Year just weeks after the countries agreed to restore diplomatic ties, the official IRNA news agency reported on Thursday.

During the event, Waleed Alreshiadan, the Saudi envoy to Dushanbe, met with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad-Taqi Saberi. Pictures posted on IRNAs Telegram channel showed the two envoys shaking hands and embracing each other.

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The relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, as two influential and important countries of the Islamic world in the West Asian region, can be the basis for creating a new trend and an increasing role in serving the interests of the countries and nations of the region, IRNA quoted Saberi as saying.

Pictures posted on the Telegram channel of Irans IRNA news agency showed the two envoys shaking hands and embracing each other. (IRNA on Telegram)

The agency did not specify the date of the meeting. However, Irans embassy in Dushanbe said on Tuesday that it had held a celebration at the mission to mark Nowruz, attended by foreign diplomats among others.

This meeting follows an announcement earlier this month by Saudi Arabia and Iran that they had reached an agreement, brokered by China, to reestablish diplomatic relations.

Under the deal, Saudi Arabia and Iran are expected to reopen their embassies and missions within two months, as well as implement security and economic cooperation agreements that were signed over 20 years ago.

Saudi Arabia cut ties with the Islamic Republic in 2016 following an attack by supporters of the Iranian regime on its embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad.

Earlier on Thursday, the Saudi foreign ministry said that Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan had a phone call with his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, during which they exchanged congratulations for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began on Thursday in both countries.

The two ministers agreed to hold a bilateral meeting soon to facilitate the reopening of embassies and consulates between the two countries, the ministry said.

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Saudi FM agrees with Iranian counterpart to hold a bilateral meeting soon

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Saudi Arabias ambassador attends Nowruz celebration at Iran embassy in Tajikistan - Al Arabiya English

There was a time when all roads to peace went through Washington. From the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt brokered by President Jimmy Carter to the 1993 Oslo Accords signed on the White House lawn to Senator George Mitchells Good Friday Agreement that ended the fighting in Northern Ireland in 1998, America was the indispensable nation for peacemaking. To Paul Nitze, a longtime diplomat and Washington insider, making evident its qualifications as an honest broker was central to Americas influence after the end of the Cold War.

But over the years, as Americas foreign policy became more militarized and as sustaining the so-called rules-based order increasingly meant that the United States put itself above all rules, America appears to have given up on the virtues of honest peacemaking.

We deliberately chose a different path. America increasingly prides itself on not being an impartial mediator. We abhor neutrality. We strive to take sides in order to be on the right side of history since we view statecraft as a cosmic battle between good and evil rather than the pragmatic management of conflict where peace inevitably comes at the expense of some justice.

This has perhaps been most evident in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but is now increasingly defining Americas general posture. In 2000, when Madeleine Albright defended the Clinton administrations refusal to veto a U.N. Security Council Resolution condemning the excessive use of force against Palestinians, she cited the need for the United States to be seen as an honest broker. But since then, the United States has vetoed 12 Security Council resolutions expressing criticisms of Israel so much for neutrality.

We started to follow a different playbook. Today, our leaders mediate to help our side in a conflict advance our position rather than to establish a lasting peace. We do it to demonstrate the value of allying with the United States. While this trend is more than two decades long, it has reached full maturity now with great-power competition with China becoming the organizing principle of U.S. foreign policy. This rivalry is, in the words of Colin Kahl, the under secretary of defense for policy, not a competition of countries. It is a competition of coalitions. Following Dr. Kahls logic, we keep our coalition partners close by offering them in addition to military might our services as a partial broker to tilt the scales of diplomacy in their favor.

Its what you do when you see the world through the prism of a Marvel movie: Peace is born not out of compromise but out of total victory.

But just as America has changed, so has the world. Elsewhere in the world, Marvel movie logic is seen for what it is: Fairy tales where the simplicity of good versus evil leaves no space for compromise or coexistence. Few have the luxury of pretending to live in such fantasy worlds.

So while America may have lost interest in peacemaking, the world has not. As the Ukraine crisis has shown, America has been immensely effective in mobilizing the West but hopelessly clueless in inspiring the global south. While the Western nations wanted the United States to rally them to defend Ukraine, the global south was looking for leadership to bring peace to Ukraine of which the United States has offered little to none.

But America not only has moved beyond peacemaking. It is also increasingly dismissive of other powers efforts to mediate. Though the White House officially welcomed the Saudi-Iranian normalization deal, it could not conceal its irritation at Chinas new-won role as a broker in the Middle East. And Beijings earlier offer to mediate between Ukraine and Russia was quickly dismissed by Washington as a distraction, even though President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine welcomed it on the condition that Russian troops would withdraw from Ukrainian territory. As Mark Hannah of the Eurasia Group Foundation recently pointed out, there is an inherent hypocrisy in touting Ukraines agency when it prosecutes war, but not when it pursues peace.

Still, Xi Jinping of China seems undeterred. He traveled to Moscow this week and also plans to speak directly to Mr. Zelensky in what appears to be the preparation for an active mediation attempt to bring the war to an end.

Mr. Xi succeeded in bringing Iran and Saudi Arabia together precisely because he was on neithers side. With stubborn discipline, Beijing maintained a neutral position on the two countries squabbles and didnt moralize their conflict or bother with whose side history would take. Nor did China bribe Iran and Saudi Arabia with security guarantees, arms deals or military bases, as all too often is our habit.

Whether Mr. Xis formula will work to end Russias war on Ukraine remains to be seen. But just as a more stable Middle East where the Saudis and Iranians arent at each others throats benefits the United States, so too will any effort to get Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table.

In a multipolar world, shared responsibility for security can be a virtue that reduces the burden on Americans without increasing threats to U.S. interests. It is not security that we would give up, but the illusion that we are and have to be in control of developments far away. For too long, Americans have been told that if we do not dominate, the world will descend into chaos. In reality, as the Chinese mediation has shown, other powers are likely to step up to shoulder the burden of security and peacemaking.

The greatest threat to our own security and reputation is if we stand in the way of a world where others have a stake in peace, if we become a nation that doesnt just put diplomacy last but also dismisses those who seek to put diplomacy first.

In tomorrows world, we should not worry if some roads to peace go through Beijing, New Delhi or Braslia. So long as all roads to war do not go through Washington.

Trita Parsi is the author of Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy and the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute.

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Opinion | The U.S. Is Not an Indispensable Peacemaker - The New York Times