Tehran/Riyadh: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has invited Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Riyadh, an Iranian official said on Sunday.
Mohammad Jamshidi, the political deputy at the Iranian president’s office, tweeted that King Salman had extended the invitation in a letter.
“In a letter to President Ebrahim Raisi… the King of Saudi Arabia welcomed the deal between the two brotherly countries (and) invited him to Riyadh,” tweeted Mohammad Jamshidi, the Iranian president’s deputy chief of staff for political affairs, adding that “Raisi welcomed the invitation”.
This development between two regional heavyweights has come days after landmark rapprochement between regional heavyweights, which will see them reestablish ties after 7 years.
Riyadh cut relations after Iranian protesters attacked Saudi diplomatic missions in 2016 following the Saudi execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr — just one in a series of flashpoints between the two longstanding regional rivals.
The deal is expected to see Shiite-majority Iran and mainly Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia reopen their embassies and missions within two months and implement security and economic cooperation deals signed more than 20 years ago.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told reporters on Sunday that the two countries had agreed to hold a meeting between their top diplomats.
He added that three locations for the talks had been suggested, without specifying the name.
The detente between Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, and Iran, strongly at odds with Western governments over its nuclear activities, has the potential to reshape relations across a region characterized by turbulence for decades.
Iran and Saudi Arabia support rival sides in several conflict zones including Yemen, where the Huthi rebels are backed by Tehran, and Riyadh leads a military coalition supporting the government.
The two sides also vie for influence in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.
A number of Gulf countries followed Riyadh’s action in 2016 and scaled back ties with Tehran, though the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait recently restored ties.
"Iran to send ambassador to #UAE soon", Iranian deputy Foreign Minister for #Political Affairs, Ali Bagheri Kani said. Read the Full story;
https://t.co/BKZ6lehRiz @alibagherikani @UAEmediaoffice @UAENews— Dr. Shahid Siddiqui (@shahidsiddiqui) March 17, 2023
Iran said last week it would welcome restoring ties with Bahrain following the deal with Saudi Arabia.
In the past, Bahrain accused Iran of having trained and backed a Shiite-led uprising in the Sunni-ruled kingdom in order to topple the Manama government. Tehran denies this.
In September, Iran welcomed an Emirati ambassador after a six-year absence, and a month earlier it said Kuwait had sent its first ambassador to Tehran since 2016.
Iran’s top security official Ali Shamkhani also held talks with Emirati President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi on Thursday in yet another sign of the shifting relations in the region. But the question still remains. What the normalisation between the two regional powers actually mean? It may become a marriage of inconvenience – one that is eroded by divergent ideological and regional agendas to turn its back on the US or switch alliances.
However, it is too early to guess about the geopolitical change in Gulf, whether the Chinese-sponsored agreement may well scuttle the American-Israeli scheme of polarising the region in favour of a pro-Israel and anti-Iran bloc. But then again, Saudi Arabia is not about to turn its back on the US or switch alliances.
It is far too dependent on Washington in military and economic affairs. Like other regional actors, large and small, Riyadh is also going hybrid, merely adding one more relationship to its diplomatic mix, aimed at securing its own interests first and foremost.
-Dr. M Shahid Siddiqui (PhD), Follow via Twitter @shahidsiddiqui
