From Tehmina
Mustapha
TEHRAN: Iran said on Monday that the latest round of talks with its regional rival Saudi Arabia was “positive and serious” and voiced hope for further progress soon.
Tehran and Riyadh, which severed diplomatic ties in 2016, held four rounds of talks in Iraq between April and September last year, with a fifth meeting last Thursday.
“The fifth round of negotiations between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Baghdad … was positive and serious and saw progress,” foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters.
Iran and Saudi Arabia support rival sides in several conflicts, including in Yemen, where Tehran backs the Houthi rebels and Riyadh leads a military coalition supporting the government.
In 2016, Iranian protesters attacked Saudi diplomatic missions in the Islamic republic after the kingdom executed revered Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Riyadh responded by cutting ties with Tehran.
Iran’s Nour news agency reported the latest talks were attended by “senior officials from the secretariat of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and the head of the Saudi intelligence service”.
It added that the foreign ministers of the two countries were expected to meet “in the near future”. Khatibzadeh said that “if the negotiations are upgraded to first-class political level, it can be expected that progress can be made swiftly in different sectors of the talks”.
The spokesman also said “an agreement was reached to hold the next round of negotiations” between Iran and Saudi Arabia, but he did not specify a date. Iran and Saudi Arabia have had held a fifth round of direct talks in Baghdad. Senior representatives of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief, Khalid bin Ali Al Humaidan, attended the talks, according to Nournews, affiliated with the SNSC, which did not mention the date of the meeting.
The challenges to re-establishing ties between the two countries were discussed in a “positive” atmosphere that “painted a brighter outlook” for the future of bilateral relations. Both sides had so far expressed hope the talks could ease bilateral and regional tensions, but have downplayed expectations of a major breakthrough.
In addition to Iraq, which has hosted all rounds of direct talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia beginning in April 2021, Oman was also reported to have played a role in organising the latest session.
So far, the only actionable outcome of the direct talks appears to have been the reopening of Iran’s representative office at the Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
