TEHRAN: Saudi and Iranian diplomats are taking tangible steps to reopen embassies after a four-year diplomatic freeze, following a meeting between Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian in Beijing last month.
A Saudi technical team led by Nasser Al-Ghannoum visited the headquarters of Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Tehran to discuss reopening the Kingdom’s diplomatic missions in Iran.
Meanwhile, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that its technical team would travel to Saudi Arabia later this week to inspect Iran’s embassy in Riyadh and prepare arrangements for its reopening.
Iran and Saudi Arabia to resume flights
The resumption of flight services between the two countries is expected to follow.
Despite domestic criticism over the policy of turning towards China, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has emphasized pursuing this policy to nullify the effects of US sanctions.
Some Iranian analysts have raised concerns over China’s growing role in the region, highlighting that both Saudi Arabia and China are counting the achievements of the trilateral agreement, but Iran failed to properly pave the way for getting achievements from this agreement.
They noted that the weakness of the political agreements is because of the lack of economic support.
Critics of the government’s policy of distancing itself from the nuclear agreement assert that the success of the agreement with Saudi Arabia, particularly in the economic aspect, depends on reviving the nuclear agreement.
However, some analysts believe that even in the absence of any deal with regard to the nuclear issue, there is potential for trade cooperation between Iran and Saudi Arabia in various fields of industry, mining, tourism, agriculture, and food products.
