Ireland kept ranks with its European partners by withdrawing its ambassador from Tehran for seven months after a German court accused Iran's leaders of ordering the murder of four dissidents in Berlin. Dublin has also supported London in the acrimony over the Iranian fatwa against the British writer, Salman Rushdie. Yet Ireland's main concern in its relations with Tehran remains the Iranian ban on Irish beef imports, due to fear of BSE or mad cow disease.
Irish farmers are losing £30 million a year because of the decision, and Dublin has sent several delegations to Tehran in hope of convincing the Iranian Veterinary Organisation that Irish measures against BSE are effective.
"There is still a residual concern on the part of the Iranians," Ireland's Ambassador, Mr Tony Mannix, says. "We are hopeful that before too long we will be able to overcome their fears. The Iranians assure us it is not a political problem, that it is purely a health problem.
"Our argument is that we have so very few cases - perhaps 250 out of up to eight million cattle," Mr Mannix continued. "Compared to Britain, where they've had more than 100,000 cases, it is microscopic. Irish veterinary health controls are among the strictest in the world. The disease has not occurred at all in the type of beef they import, which is young steers."
Iran lifted its ban on French beef imports early this year, and Mr Mannix hopes Irish exports may resume soon. "What makes the Iranians particularly nervous is the common border with the UK, although Northern Ireland is almost clear of the disease now," he explains. Beef was Ireland's principal export to Iran, and export figures have plummeted from $58.1 million in 1995 to just $1.2 million for the first four months of this year.
Washington claims the EU has taken a soft line with Iran out of greed; trade with Iran represents only a small fraction of their total exports, the Europeans respond. They were trying to promote reform and encourage Iranian moderates with their "critical dialogue". The freeze of that policy appears to be thawing.
"The Iranians have called for restoration of what they prefer to call `constructive dialogue', Mr Mannix says. "On the European side, we are looking for the best way forward."
The face-saving compromise that has just brought EU ambassadors back to Tehran was typical of Europe's roller-coaster relations with the Islamic Republic. Iran was outraged when the German court accused Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, its Supreme Leader and Guide of the Revolution, of complicity in the 1992 slaying of four Kurdish opponents in a Berlin nightclub. Europeans were confronted with evidence that "critical dialogue" had failed to alter Iranian behaviour.
Ayatollah Khamenei was determined to punish Bonn. If the ambassadors were to return, he said, the German envoy must come back last. Paris engineered the solution whereby most of the Europeans - including Mr Mannix - returned in a first group on November 14th.