Iran Finally Appreciating Benefits of Diplomacy?
Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with China’s help, have agreed to resume diplomatic relations that were disrupted seven years ago and to return to bilateral agreements signed in 1998 and 2001. In the process, they will reopen their embassies in the respective capitals in less than two months. What would this mean, and what would it entail?
Writing for the Iran Diplomacy website and citing Iranian analysts Mohammad-Javad Khalili and Mostafa Mirza’i, foreign affairs specialist Abdolrahman Fathollahi suggests the Saudis need Tehran’s pressure on the Houthis to reach a compromise with the Kingdom and thereby end the bloody and ruinous war in Saudi Arabia’s impoverished southern neighbor. He also points out that the U.S. may have deliberately stayed out of the process but signaled its assent to Riyadh, given how China’s expenditure of effort and political capital may actually work to benefit U.S. interests in the Middle East. Likewise, the thaw in Saudi-Iranian relations does not necessarily mean the Kingdom will abandon the normalization of ties with Israel. Meanwhile, Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Baqeri-Kani, who led Iran’s nuclear negotiators until the talks stalled, seems to have taken on a smaller portfolio: exchanging prisoners with the U.S. and releasing Iranian financial assets held by U.S. allies. Baqeri-Kani was in Muscat to conduct talks with Omani officials, who in the past have played the role of intermediary in such arrangements between Iran and the U.S., especially with prisoner exchanges.
Listen to this story published on Iran Daily Summary on 13 May 2023 on PersuMedia Minutes.