Iraq to host another round of Iran-Saudi talks

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian is scheduled to meet his Saudi counterpart Faisal Bin Farhan in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, an Iranian lawmaker announced yesterday.

Javad Karimi-Ghodousi told the Fars News Agency that there was “no development” since the talks that began in April 2021 between Tehran and Riyadh.

He said that the upcoming meeting would discuss “bilateral relations, the opening of embassies, and regional issues, especially the Yemen war.”

The Iranian official did not provide details about when the meetings would take place.

Iran and Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic ties in 2016 after Riyadh executed a high-profile Saudi Shia cleric and activist, Nimr Baqir Al-Nimr, prompting mass protests both domestically in the eastern province town of Qatif and in Iran where protesters ransacked and set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran. Both countries have also been engaged in several proxy wars in the region with a rivalry based on competing for sectarian ideologies and geopolitics motives.

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