Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian assured Thursday that his country was working for “the unity of the Muslim world”, on the occasion of his first official visit to Saudi Arabia since the diplomatic rapprochement of these two rival powers of the Middle -East.
Iran, a Shia-majority country, and Saudi Arabia, a Sunni-majority country, have had strained relations for decades, supporting opposing sides in conflicts in the region.
But relations between these two heavyweights, which resumed after an agreement reached in March after seven years of rupture, “are going in the right direction”, said the head of Iranian diplomacy.
He was speaking at a press conference in Riyadh alongside his Saudi counterpart Fayçal ben Farhane, referring to economic and security cooperation, without further details.
The two men met in a room called “Islamic Solidarity”, “a prelude to the meeting of the heads of the two states”, added Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, without specifying when President Ebrahim Raisi would visit Saudi Arabia at the invitation of King Salman.
“We are sure that all these meetings and this cooperation will contribute to the unity of the Muslim world,” said the Iranian official.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also took the opportunity to reaffirm the Islamic Republic’s support for the Palestinian cause, at a time when the United States, Tehran’s pet peeve, is seeking to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. .
For his part, Faisal ben Farhane confirmed the resumption of the activities of the Saudi embassy in Tehran, describing it as “a new stage in the development of relations between the two countries”.
Iran and the oil-rich Gulf monarchy severed ties in 2016 after protesters in the Islamic Republic attacked Saudi diplomatic missions in response to Riyadh’s execution of an influential Shiite cleric.
After long negotiations, notably via Iraq, the two rival powers have agreed to resume their diplomatic relations as part of an agreement concluded in March with the intermediary of China.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian is on “a one-day trip”, accompanied by Alireza Enayati, Tehran’s new ambassador to Saudi Arabia, according to the official Iranian news agency Irna.
This visit and the reopening of the respective embassies represent “important measures”, estimated Anna Jacobs, Gulf specialist at the International Crisis Group think tank.
But the rapprochement “is only in its infancy and it is not yet very clear how the two parties will address their many points of friction”, she added to AFP.
The Islamic Republic reopened its diplomatic mission in Riyadh on June 6.
In mid-June, Faisal ben Farhane made an official visit to Iran, a first for a Saudi foreign minister since 2006.
In another first since the Iran-Saudi thaw, military officials from the two countries met in Moscow on the sidelines of a security conference, according to Iranian state media.
This diplomatic warming has raised hopes of regional appeasement, as Saudi Arabia tries to extricate itself from the war in Yemen, a poor neighboring country where it has intervened since 2015 to support pro-government forces against the Houthis. , rebels close to Iran.
Recent diplomatic efforts have failed to move towards a resolution of the conflict, although fighting has largely diminished.
As for Syria, another Arab country in the region where Iran is very influential, Saudi Arabia above all allowed Bashar al-Assad’s return to grace within the Arab League in May.
Damascus had been suspended from the pan-Arab organization after the violent crackdown on anti-government protests that sparked civil war in 2011.
However, Saudi-Iranian relations remain complicated, in particular because of a dispute over a gas field that the two countries claim.
Tehran threatens to continue exploration of the deposit that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia say they are the only “legitimate” to exploit.
But, according to analyst Anna Jacobs, this file “should not represent a major obstacle to improving relations and could even be an opportunity for dialogue”.
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17/08/2023 18:37:01 – Ryad (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
