Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met with Saudi officials in his first visit since the restoration of diplomatic relations on Thursday, August 17. They discussed bilateral relations, regional dynamics, and global affairs.
Iran’s top diplomat preached unity and dialogue during a visit to Saudi Arabia on Thursday, his first since the two Middle East rivals announced a surprise rapprochement in March.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also took the opportunity to reiterate the Islamic Republic’s support for the Palestinian cause at a time when Riyadh is in discussions with the United States about potentially normalizing ties with Israel.
Ties between Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia and Shiite-majority Iran “are progressing in the right direction,” Amir-Abdollahian told reporters at a press conference with his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan, touting economic and security cooperation without announcing any new agreements.
The two countries severed ties in 2016 after Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran were attacked during protests over Riyadh’s execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.
But in March, a China-brokered deal saw the long-time rivals agree to restore diplomatic relations and reopen their respective embassies.
In June, Iran reopened its embassy in Riyadh with a flag-raising ceremony.
Deep-Rooted Issues
Amir-Abdollahian’s one-day stop in Riyadh came two months after Prince Faisal became the first Saudi foreign minister to travel to Iran since 2006.
The visits and the reopening of embassies represent “important confidence-building measures”, said Anna Jacobs, senior Gulf analyst for the International Crisis Group.
“Resuming diplomatic ties and engaging in more dialogue is a good start, but it’s difficult to tell if this will be enough to resolve the long-standing issues in their relationship,” Jacobs said.
Iran and Saudi Arabia have backed opposing sides in conflict zones across the Middle East for years, including in Yemen, where in 2015 Riyadh mobilized an international coalition against Iran-backed Huthi rebels who had toppled the internationally recognized government the previous year.
Since the March deal, Saudi Arabia has ramped up a push for peace in Yemen.
It has also championed the return of key Iran ally Syria to the Arab fold at a summit in May.
At the same time, the two sides have exchanged competing statements over a disputed gas field that Saudi Arabia plans to develop jointly with Kuwait. Iran also wants to explore and exploit the field which has long been a point of contention between the three countries.
Katrine Houmøller, with AFP
