After years of agonizing negotiations, Iran and P5+1(US, Russia, China, France, UK) & Germany finally reached a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action(JCPOA) in July 2015 to resolve the dispute over Teheran's alleged nuclear development program. Thanks to the agreement, in January 2016 years of a tough economic sanctions imposed on Iran started being lifted. Since then, tremendous attention from the global community has been pouring into this natural resource rich and strategically located country of 80 million population with enormous economic, political, and diplomatic potential. This report tries to provide a way to build sustainable relationships between South Korea and Iran based on firm understanding of the historical, geostrategic, and economic essentials of this important country.

 We first lay out theoretical foundation of this country by providing historical background of Iran focusing on her interaction with global and regional changes mainly caused by the great power balance of power. We argue that neorealist framework and middle power theory are extremely useful to comprehend the complex relationships between Iran and some of the chosen great powers and Iran's foreign policy behaviors.
 The relationships between Iran and the US has been relatively short and cozy until WWII. Yet after the US assumed the leadership position from the UK after WWII, and the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union intensified, the US interest in Iran became more intrusive and coercive. Washington did not hesitate to overthrow a democratically elected government of Iran in 1953 and replaced it with pro-US Pahlavi regime. Despite severe criticism due to the Shah's autocratic policy, the US supported it unconditionally as a bulwark Cold War ally in the Middle East. Yet the Iranian Revolution dashed the US hope of maintaining a foothold in the region against Moscow and the ensuing Hostage Crisis caused unending deep animosity and mistrust between the new regime in Teheran and Washington. Several attempts and opportunities to bring rapprochement between the two were missed. Finally, Obama and Rouhani were able to agree to improve relationships between the US and Iran, and it contributed to the signing of the JCPOA. Yet the surprising election victory of anti-Iran stance Trump in the US has brought new uncertainty regarding their relationships.
 Russia's strategic perception toward Iran is based on the concept of the sphere of influence. In comparison of it, Iran's political response to Russian influence is to strategically balance great powers. Iran has attracted competing powers in Russia to offset Russia’s influence.  

Geopolitically, the strategic interests of Iran and Russia can overlap in the Middle East, Caucasus, and Central Asia. Iran and Russia share five strategic interests in Central Asia and the Caucasus region: ①prevention of regional conflicts; ②opposition to military intervention by offshore countries; ③antiterrorism-regional cooperation; ④development and cooperation for energy resources; ⑤regional economic and security community.
 After the Cold War, Iran's trade and economic cooperation with Russia has been in a state of underdevelopment. The most notable area of economic cooperation between Iran and Russia is the energy sector. If Iran's natural gas production increases in the long term after the economic sanctions are lifted and the natural gas production gap between the two countries narrows sharply, their competition in the downstream markets in Europe is likely to increase.
 It can be said that bilateral relations of Iran and Russia are sensitively linked to changes in US-Russian relations. If the US-Russia relationship has improved and is cooperative(consensual), the Russian-Iranian relationship has temporarily cooled down, and on the contrary, the cooperation between the two countries has been restored.
 Domestic political changes in Iran and Russia have played an important role in bilateral relations. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has been more favorable to Russia than the United States. Domestic political changes in Russia due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union also played an critical role in the formation of cooperation and conflict patterns of the two countries. In the early post-Cold War era, pro-Westernist Atlanticism of Yeltsin administration was negative for its relationship with Iran. Putin administration’s Eurasianist policy(or ‘Pivot to the East’) provided favorable strategic environment for Iran.

 Regarding Iran's nuclear program, bilateral relations of Iran and Russia show a typical pattern of cooperation and conflict. Russia has been working with Iran on its civil nuclear program, but has strongly opposed the military nuclear program. Russia has proposed two critical alternatives to the Iranian nuclear program: the nuclear swap deal and the ‘step-by-step’ approach. This proposal became the basis of the 'Lausanne Agreement', the turning point for negotiating the Iranian nuclear issue, and became the main operating principle of the JCPOA.
 The relationship between the EU and Iran has shown their cooperation and conflicts repeatedly. It can be said that the EU’s external policy towards Iran during the Cold War was similar with the US policy of preventing the expansion of communism. In the early period of European integration, member states such as the UK, France and Italy instead of the Community had their own policies towards Iran. It was the Iranian Revolution of 1979 that was the turning point in the relationship between the EU and Iran.
 Since the Islamic Revolution, the EU has faced various situations in its relations with Iran, but the EU has recently shown its willingness of developing relationship with Iran by active involvement in the resolution of Iran’s nuclear programme. Various factors such as Iran’s importance in terms of geopolitics, trading partner, energy security, and Iran’s domestic situations have also influenced the EU’s relationship with Iran.
 In particular, the EU has kept its different policy and stance from the US in the resolution of Iran’s nuclear programme, which eventually made the EU play a leading role. Even if the EU has the structural limitation in its foreign policy, the EU since its pivotal role for Iran’s nuclear issue could expand its international role as a civilian power which focuses on reconciliation. Therefore, the EU could have more advantages to develop its relationship with Iran after lifting the ban on Iran.

 With the complete conclusion of the nuclear talks in 2015, the economic and financial sanctions on the Iran by the western countries have been lifted. There has been growing interest in the Iran whose population is up to 80 million. Recently, the macroeconomy of Iran has improved compared to the past economic sanctions period, but there are still downside risks such as falling oil prices and the global economic downturn. In other words, there are complex problems such as stagflation where high inflation rate and unemployment rate occur at the same time, weak financial structure of banking sector and corporate sector, and delays in national taxation. In addition to the in-depth understanding of the macroeconomic, industrial structure and financial situation of Iran's economy, we need a comprehensive diagnosis of Iran's development strategy and characteristics of the oil-producing economy.
 In recent years, Iran has been suffering from a number of negative externalities. Now, after the conclusion of the nuclear deal, economic sanctions have been loosened and economic development has been spurred. Unlike other oil producing countries in the Middle East, Iran's tax revenue accounts for half of the total revenue. Other than oil and gas industries, the proportion of other manufacturing industries is high, and the domestic sector is also large, and the tax revenue base is wide. However, Iran also shares common characteristics of oil-producing countries such as subsidies and the deficit in the non-oil sector. It is also exposed to external market shocks, such as a drop in international oil prices. Therefore, in the face of economic sanctions that are expected to act as a positive external environment factor for Iranian economy and instability of international oil prices, which is a negative factor, a fiscal sustainability in the mobilization of economic development is an important policy variable. In this study, we presented the fiscal reforms required for Iran.
 Having considered the economic cooperation between Korea and Iran, previous research and policies have been focused upon two issues, namely trade and energy. After the international community started to lift the ban on Iran, however, a new form of cooperation with the consideration of the change of Iran’s economic structure needs to be considered. Iran’s economic development plan is the reduction of dependence on oil industry and diversified industrialisation. Therefore, the new formula of Korea’s economic cooperation with Iran could be promoted by way of industrial cooperation such as joint venture and technology transfer in the area of manufacturing industries. This could allow Korean companies to access Iran’s market directly and more effectively which still keeps high tariffs and its own trade policies.

국문요약

제1장 서론

1. 연구의 배경

2. 연구의 목적

3. 연구방법 및 동향

 가. 연구방법

 나. 국내연구 동향

 다. 문헌조사, 심층면접, 현지 조사의 병합

제2장 국제체제의 구조적 변동과 중동

1. 국제체제 변동에 관한 신현실주의적 접근

2. 중동지역 재구조화의 국제정치?경제학

 가. 19세기 이전

 나. 19세기 유럽 제국주의(19세기 초~1차 세계대전)

다. 국가시스템의 출범(1914~50년)

라. 민족국가 건설과 냉전(1950~90년)

마. 탈냉전과 새로운 중동 질서

3. 중동지역체제의 변화과정과 메커니즘, 그리고 이란

4. 이란의 중견국 모형의 적용가능성

5. 소결

제3장 이란과 미국의 전략적 관계 패턴

1. 양자관계의 역사성

 가. 20세기 초: 냉전 시작 전

 나. 냉전기

 다. 탈냉전기

2. 양자관계의 결정요인

 가. 지정학적 요인

 나. 경제적 요인

 다. 에너지 요인

 라. 이란의 국내정치 요인

3. 이란의 핵프로그램과 양국관계

4. 소결

제4장 이란과 러시아의 전략적 관계 패턴

1. 양자관계의 역사성

 가. 근대~냉전 이전 시기

 나. 냉전기

 다. 냉전 해체 이후

2. 양자관계의 결정요인

 가. 지정학적 요인

 나. 에너지 및 경제적 요인

 다. 미국요인

 라. 국내정치적 요인

3. 이란의 핵프로그램과 러시아

4. 소결

제5장 이란과 EU의 전략적 관계 패턴

1. 양자관계의 역사성

 가. 냉전기 및 탈냉전기

 나. 이란혁명 이후 초기(1979~89년)

 다. 긴장완화 및 신뢰회복기(1989~97년)

 라. 관계확장 시기(1997~2002년)

 마. 핵프로그램 이후(2002년~)

2. 양자관계의 결정요인

 가. 지정학적 요인

 나. 경제적 요인: 교역 관계 및 제재

 다. 에너지요인

 라. 국내 및 대외적 요인(미국)

3. 이란 핵문제 해결과 EU

4. 소결

제6장 이란의 거시재정구조와 지속가능한 경제발전전략

1. 이란의 거시경제, 재정, 그리고 산업 및 무역 구조

 가. 이란의 거시경제 현황

 나. 이란의 재정과 2016년 예산안

 다. 이란의 산업 및 무역 구조

2. 산유국 경제의 거시?재정 이슈

3. 지속가능한 경제발전을 위한 이란의 전략 

 가. 경제제재 해제 이후의 발전전략(제6차 5개년 개발계획)

 나. 이란의 산업구조 재편과 한국과 이란의 산업협력방안

 1) 이란의 산업구조 재편

 2) 한국과 이란의 산업협력방향

4. 소결

제7장 결론

참고문헌

부록

Executive Summary