ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The foreign ministers of regional foes Iran and Saudi Arabia met in the Chinese capital on Thursday, marking the latest step towards implementing a Beijing-brokered reconciliation deal last month.
After over seven years of hostility which has played out in proxy wars across the Middle East, Tehran and Riyadh agreed to restore diplomatic ties. The deal has the potential to reshape the political climate of the Middle East which over the past decades has been influenced by the hostile relations between the two regional powers.
“Iran and Saudi Arabia, emphasizing the official resumption of bilateral relations, discussed the executive steps towards the reopening of the embassies and consulates of the two countries,” read a statement from the Iranian foreign ministry.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian previously held three rounds of telephone calls aimed at paving the way for the meeting to place during the month of Ramadan in order to activate the deal reached, and the meeting indicates that Tehran and Riyadh were determined to keep on track with the agreement.
Under the agreement, both countries are set to restore their diplomatic missions by reopening embassies within two months.
Analysts and experts say the latest agreement poses a challenge to the role and influence of the US in the Middle East, particularly as Washington has been a key ally to Riyadh, while strongly at loggerheads with Tehran over human rights abuses and its nuclear activity.
Both nations have supported opposing forces in several conflict zones across the region, most notably in Yemen, where Iran backs the Houthi rebels while Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition supporting the government. Both Riyadh and Tehran have also sought to create their own spheres of influence in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.
The Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Shiite-majority Iran had rocky relations since 1979, when Shiite revolutionaries came to power in Iran and pledged to export their revolution to the world, including Gulf countries.
Diplomatic ties were cut in 2016 when Iranian protestors attacked Saudi diplomatic missions in retaliation to the Sunni kingdom's execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.
In 2016, other Gulf states followed suit and cut ties with Iran. On Wednesday, Tehran named its first ambassador to the United Arab Emirates for the first time in eight years, after warming up ties with Kuwait last year and expressing its willingness to mend relations with Bahrain. The Sunni kingdom in Bahrain has long accused Iran of stirring revolts by the Shiite-majority population.
