Saudi-and-Iranian officials-hold-talks-for-patch-up-relationships
Senior Saudi and Iranian officials have held direct talks in an attempt to repair relations between the two regional rivals, five years after they severed diplomatic ties, according to three officials briefed on the talks.
The talks, which took place in Baghdad this month, are believed to be the first important political talks between the two nations since 2016 and come as Joe Biden seeks to revive the nuclear deal Iran signed with the world powers in 2015 and decal the regional tension. .
Saudi Arabia is determined to end its war in Yemen against Iranian-oriented Houthi rebels who have intensified their attacks on Saudi cities and oil infrastructure. The Houthis have launched dozens of missiles and explosive-laden drones into the kingdom this year.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has also taken steps that appear to lean towards winning the favor of the Biden administration, which has promised to reassess relations with the kingdom and end the six-year war in Yemen.
The first round of Saudi-Iranian talks took place in Baghdad on April 9. They included discussions about the Houthi attacks and were positive, one of the officials said.
The official said the Saudi delegation was led by Khalid bin Ali al-Humaidan, the intelligence chief, adding that another round of talks was planned for next week.
The process is facilitated by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who held talks with Prince Mohammed in Riyadh last month.
“It simply came to our notice then [related to the nuclear deal] moves faster and [because of] The Houthi attacks, ”the official said.
A senior Saudi official denied that any talks with Iran had taken place. The Iraqi and Iranian governments did not comment.
But a senior Iraqi official and a foreign diplomat confirmed the talks. The Iraqi official added that Baghdad has also enabled “communication channels” between Iran and Egypt and Iran and Jordan.
“The Prime Minister is very keen to personally play a role in making Iraq a bridge between these antagonistic powers in the region,” the official said.
“It is in Iraq’s interest that it can play this role. The more confrontation you have in the region, the more they play here. . . and these conversations have taken place. ”
Relations between Saudi Arabia, which considers itself the leader of the Sunni Muslim world, and Iran, the region’s supreme Shia power, hit a low level in January 2016 after the kingdom’s embassy in Tehran was searched.
The embassy was burned after Saudi Arabia executed Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a senior Shia cleric. Rivals accusing each other of destabilizing the region then severed diplomatic ties.
Tensions escalated further in 2018 after former President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the United States out of Iran’s nuclear deal and imposed crippling sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Prince Mohammed was a staunch supporter of Trump’s maximum press campaign against Tehran. But Saudi Arabia’s vulnerability to attack was revealed after a missile and drone attack in September 2019 temporarily knocked out half of the kingdom’s crude oil production.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack, but US and Saudi officials blamed Iran.
Washington and Riyadh accuse Iran of smuggling missiles and drones to the Houthis, a militant Islamist movement that has controlled Sana’a, the Yemeni capital and northern Yemen since early 2015.
Iraq, home to powerful Iranian-backed militant movements, was also caught up in regional tensions, especially when Trump ordered the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the chief of Qud’s expeditionary force in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, in Baghdad in January 2020.
It pushed the United States and the Islamic Republic to the brink of war with Iraq, which hosts about 2,500 U.S. troops, a likely battlefield when Baghdad was pressed between Washington and Tehran.
Iran has forged strong security, political and trade ties with its neighbor since the US-led invasion overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The Saudi-Iranian negotiations are a sign that the election of Biden, who has said he will join the 2015 nuclear deal and lift many of the sanctions against Iran if Tehran falls behind in line with the deal, has begun to shift regional dynamics .
The remaining signatories to the nuclear deal – Iran, the EU, Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China – have held talks in Vienna to pave the way for the United States to rejoin.
In January, Riyadh ended a more than three-year regional embargo against Qatar, imposed in part because of Doha’s ties to Tehran. The move was widely seen as part of Prince Mohammed’s efforts to gain credibility with the Biden administration.
Riyadh, who was against the nuclear deal, has said it will not hinder the nuclear talks. However, it wants regional powers to be involved in all discussions in connection with any new agreement and insists that Iran’s missile program and regional activities should be addressed.
“Kadhimi has good connections to the Iranian system. What is new is that Kadhimi is playing this role with Saudi Arabia, “said another official briefing on the talks. “It is a good thing that Iraq is playing this role, but it is very early days.”
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, whose last term expires in August, has previously stated that he has wanted to cool the hostilities against Arab rivals.
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