by Patrick McLaughlin – parlyreportSA.com
ParlyReportSA provides business and political analysis from Parliament, Cape Town.

Ramaphosa, MTN and the Middle East.   As leaders from the Arab world gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh to witness the historic Gaza peace accord, Pretoria’s absence was conspicuous.  Commentators have been quick to label South Africa’s silence as confusion, even incompetence — another sign, they say, of a disjointed foreign policy under President Cyril Ramaphosa.

But that reading is too shallow.
Ramaphosa’s silence was not the product of bewilderment. It was the silence of calculation.

Whilst President Cyril Ramaphosa’s recent visits to the Middle East and his adoption as leader of the anti-Israeli “genocide cause” at the International Court of Justice are events that have attracted relatively modest attention at home, far stronger interest in South Africa’s intentions on the subject have been created overseas particularily, with Israelis and US Middle East observers. President Ramaphosa, has addressed a full United Nations Assembly on the subject a number of times.

Most recently, therefore, to have South Africa missing from 47 world leaders concluding a truce and celebration would seem a diplomatic failure of gigantic proportions for the Ramaphosa team.   A study, however, shows that the historical links between South Africa, MTN, and the Gulf might suggest completely the opposite.

Playing with US patience

To understand Pretoria’s posture today, one must go back to President Ramaphosa’s time as chairman of MTN — the telecoms giant that built its Middle East footprint through the Irancell joint venture. That venture, born during years of Western sanctions, was haunted from the start by allegations that political influence in Pretoria smoothed MTN’s way into Tehran.

In 2012, Turkish competitor Turkcell accused MTN of corruption in the awarding of Iran’s mobile licence. The case faded but was never disproved. More recently, the United States has revived its scrutiny of MTN’s Iran dealings. Civil suits under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act — such as Zobay v. MTN Group — remain live, with fresh evidence now before a U.S. grand jury. The Foreign Policy Research Institute recently described these as cases that could “place multinationals in peril.”

Ramaphosa’s name may not be on any docket, but history has not changed: the chair who oversaw MTN’s expansion into Iran now occupies the Union Buildings. The echoes are impossible to ignore in Washington.

Dirco plays along

MTN’s old political networks never entirely dissolved. Zane Dangor, Ramaphosa’s trusted ally and now Director-General of International Relations (Dirco), sits at the centre of South Africa’s G20 presidency as its “Sherpa.” It was Dangor who recently assured journalists that Pretoria was unconcerned about U.S. pressure ahead of the G20 summit — a statement more defiant than diplomatic.

In the same period, U.S.–South African relations have chilled sharply: new tariff reviews, reduced diplomatic contact, and open concern in Washington about Pretoria’s alignment with Moscow and Tehran. Far from being “out of the loop,” President Ramaphosa is chairing the loop.      https://www.biznews.com/rational-perspective/ramaphosa-mtn-middle-east-patrick-mclaughlin

A dossier that writes itself

Anyone assembling the public record would find the pieces easily: MTN’s 2006–2013 annual reports, the Turkcell affidavits, the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act filings, and the Department of International Relations’ correspondence with MTN during the Iran licence years. It is a dossier that almost compiles itself — a story of how commercial ambition blurred into foreign policy, and how that legacy still shapes Pretoria’s stance today.

When the U.S. Justice Department re-opens a file on MTN, the tremor runs straight to the Presidency.   https://parlyreportsa.com/international-relations/sa-call-on-trump-to-abandon-policy-on-israel/

Misread by the media?

It is tempting for analysts to portray President Ramaphosa’s foreign policy as amateurish — as Ray Hartley wrote this week, “South Africa’s amateurish grasp of foreign policy has once more been exposed.”
But perhaps what appears to be amateurism is strategy: to lie low while the legal and diplomatic crossfire intensifies.

Pretoria’s quiet may not be ignorance — it may be insulation. And that distinction matters.

Patrick McLaughlin

editor

References

• Foreign Policy Research Institute (2025): ‘US Anti-Terrorism Cases Against MTN Group Put Multinationals in Peril’
• IOL / Cape Times (2025): ‘MTN’s Iran dealings could severely hurt US-SA relations’
• Reuters (2012): ‘MTN slides on Iran corruption lawsuit’
• DIRCO / G20 Secretariat (2024): ‘Zane Dangor briefing as G20 Sherpa’