RIYADH: Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers spoke by phone to mark the beginning of Ramazan, vowing to meet “soon” to implement a landmark bilateral reconciliation deal they have struck with the backing of China.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan called his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and the pair “exchanged congratulations on the occasion of the holy month of Ramazan”, which begins Thursday in both countries,” the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement posted on Twitter.
‘Bilateral meeting soon’
The statement said that “the two ministers agreed to hold the bilateral meeting soon in order to pave the way for the reopening of embassies and consulates between the two nations,”
Saudi officials have said that the ministers’ expected meeting is the next step in a surprise Chinese-brokered rapprochement announced on 10 March intended to fully restore diplomatic relations seven years after they were severed.
Riyadh cut ties after Iranian protesters attacked Saudi diplomatic missions in the year 2016 following the Saudi execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr – just one in the 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, consulates, and missions within two months and implement security and economic cooperation deals signed more than twenty years ago.
On Sunday, an Iranian official said that President Ebrahim Raisi had favourably received the invitation to visit Saudi Arabia from King Salman, though Riyadh has yet to confirm.
Amir-Abdollahian told reporters that the two nations had agreed to hold a meeting between their top diplomats and that three locations had been suggested without specifying which.
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.
