Why Are US Officials Promoting a Meeting With an Ally of Iran?
The Daily Signal 12/5/2025 5:40:21 PM
 

The State Department and a congressional delegation have engaged with a top-ranking Bosnian official who earlier this year reportedly touted potential cooperation with the government of Iran for military industry development. 

The same official, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Defense Minister Zukan Helez, also smeared Heritage Foundation Research Fellow Max Primorac over his congressional testimony this week. 

Last week, the U.S. Embassy to Bosnia and Herzegovina promoted a meeting Helez had with two members of Congress, Reps. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and Donald Norcross, D-N.J. 

The embassy, which used “BiH” to refer to the Balkan state, said the members of Congress and Helez discussed “shared interest in a secure and stable BiH, and to highlight the importance of our continuing U.S.-BiH security partnership, which has secured 30 years of peace in BiH, bolstered regional stability, and enhanced economic opportunities for citizens of both the United States and Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

In May, Helez met with Brigadier Mahmoud Mohaghagh Pour, the non-resident military envoy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Sarajevo Times reported. 

“Minister Helez emphasized that he will never forget the assistance to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which Iran provided during the war years, when it was most needed,” the outlet reported. “He noted that he believes that Iran and Bosnia and Herzegovina can also cooperate in the field of military industry development, taking into account all political circumstances and the state structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

The report went on to say: “Pour announced to Minister Helez an invitation for high-level delegations from BiH and Iran to exchange visits, with the aim of considering the possibility of establishing closer bilateral cooperation between the Ministries of Defense of BiH and Iran.”

Helez is an “extremist,” and “Iran’s point man in the Balkans,” said J. Michael Waller, senior analyst for strategy at the Center for Security Policy in a post on X Friday.  

Waller also noted that Helez verbally attacked Max Primorac, a senior research fellow with The Heritage Foundation, after Primorac testified before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe. Helez called him the spawn of “fascists” and “Nazis”, Waller noted. 

Primorac said the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo has not criticized the Helez statement. A former official in the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, Primorac said that embassies typically defend Americans. 

“Helez is sending the message to anyone in the future, you criticize us, we will come after you,” Primorac told The Daily Signal. 

He also blames the embassy more than the members of Congress for the meeting, since embassies have the background information on officials. 

“The embassies arrange meetings for congressional delegations. They put these guys in a compromising position,” Primorac said. “There are no new political employees in the embassy there. Nothing has changed from the Biden administration.”

The Daily Signal reached out to the State Department, as well as to the offices of both Turner and Norcross, but did not get a response by Friday afternoon. 

The Daily Signal also reached out to the Bosnia and Herzegovina Embassy in the United States by phone and email, as well as Bosnia’s Ministry of Defense and the office of the prime minister by email. None responded by publication time. 

Primorac wrote a Heritage Foundation report in July detailing some of the historic ties between the Balkan nation and Iran. 

“Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps established long-term ties to Bosniak leaders, especially those in the intelligence services,” the report explains. “Thirty years on, these ties remain as BiH’s Muslim leaders have revived wartime ties with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood while undergoing radicalization via years of external funding of hardline imams.”

“The May 2025 visit of a high-level Iranian defense official to meet with the BiH’s Muslim minister of defense prompted a sharp rebuke from the Trump Administration,” Primorac’s report continued. “The radicalization of BiH’s Muslim authorities reached its apex last month [June 2025] when they cancelled the biannual meeting in Sarajevo of the Conference of European Rabbis, calling their meeting ‘morally offensive’ as ‘support will be sent to the occupier [Israel]… who commits genocide against the innocent population of Gaza.’”

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