Iranian president has obtained an invite to go to Saudi Arabia following reconciliation deal, Iranian official says.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has favorably obtained an invite from Saudi Arabia’s King Salman to go to the dominion following the reconciliation deal between the 2 nations, an Iranian official has mentioned.
“In a letter to President Raisi … the King of Saudi Arabia welcomed the deal between the 2 brotherly nations [and] invited him to Riyadh,” tweeted Mohammad Jamshidi, the Iranian president’s deputy chief of workers for political affairs, including to this Sunday message that “Raisi welcomed the invitation”.
The 2 regional heavyweights introduced on March 10 a Chinese language-brokered deal to revive ties seven years later they had been severed.
Riyadh reduce relations after Iranian protesters attacked Saudi diplomatic missions in 2016 following the Saudi execution of Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr – only one in a sequence of flashpoints between the 2 long-standing regional rivals.
The deal is anticipated to see Shia-majority Iran and primarily Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia reopen their embassies and missions inside two months and implement safety and financial cooperation offers signed greater than 20 years in the past.
Iranian International Minister Hossein Amir-Abdullahian instructed reporters on Sunday that the 2 nations had agreed to carry a gathering between their prime diplomats.
He added that three areas for the talks had been steered, with out specifying the place.
Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Tehran, mentioned that Amir-Abdullahian careworn “that each nations are exchanging technical groups to examine the embassies in Tehran and Riyadh and see whether or not they’re prepared for each missions to be deployed there”.
“The Iranians steered, in line with Amir-Abdullahian, three areas for the assembly. The alternate passed off now by way of the Swiss embassy, and never by way of the Chinese language. This might point out that there are a number of channels between the Iranians and Saudis proper now,” Hashem mentioned.
The détente between Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, and Iran, strongly at odds with Western governments over its nuclear actions, has the potential to reshape relations throughout a area characterised by turbulence for many years.
Iran and Saudi Arabia assist rival sides in a number of battle zones – together with Yemen, the place the Houthi rebels are aligned with Tehran and the place a navy coalition supporting the federal government is led by Riyadh.
The 2 sides additionally vie for affect in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.
A lot of Gulf nations adopted Riyadh’s motion in 2016 and scaled again ties with Tehran, although the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait lately restored ties.
Amir-Abdullahian mentioned Iran additionally hoped steps can be made to normalize its ties with Bahrain, an in depth Saudi ally that adopted Riyadh in severing diplomatic ties with Iran in 2016.
Prior to now, Bahrain accused Iran of getting skilled and backed a Shia-led rebellion within the Sunni-ruled kingdom in an effort to topple the Manama authorities. Tehran denies this.
“An settlement was reached two months in the past for Iranian and Bahraini technical delegations to go to the embassies of the 2 nations. We hope that some obstacles between Iran and Bahrain can be eliminated and we’ll take primary steps to reopen the embassies,” Amir-Abdullahian mentioned.
There was no fast remark from Manama.
Bahrain, along with different Gulf Arab states, welcomed the settlement between Riyadh and Tehran to revive relations.
In September, Iran welcomed an Emirati ambassador after a six-year absence, and a month earlier it mentioned Kuwait had despatched its first ambassador to Tehran since 2016.
Iran’s prime safety official Ali Shamkhani additionally held talks with United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi on Thursday in yet one more signal of the shifting relations within the area.
