ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq is playing a positive role in facilitating the negotiations between Riyadh and Tehran as the fifth round will commence soon in Baghdad, Iran’s ambassador to Iraq said on Wednesday.
“We have had four rounds of negotiations with the Saudis in Baghdad and our Iraqi friends were present in these negotiations, the fifth round will take place in the near future,” Iraj Masjedi said during an interview with al-Ahad TV. “Iraq is playing a useful and positive role.”
Since last year, Iran and Saudi negotiators have met in Baghdad on four occasions in the presence of Iraqi officials to speak about how to resolve their differences in the Middle East, particularly when it comes to the conflict in Yemen where Iran-backed Houthi militias are known to use Iranian manufactured drones and missiles to target Saudi airports and cities.
The fifth round of talks has seen a delay as the Iraqi political actors are in the process of forming a new government following the country’s parliamentary elections, but Iraq has maintained its role in the talks.
“Iraq is playing an active role in the politics of the region and in international affairs. Iraq is a great assistance to the Islamic Republic in the regional negotiation, as it is evident in the negotiation between Iran and Saudi,” Masjedi added, noting that he hoped the negotiations would bring a positive result as both Tehran and Saudi have a “constructive and positive view” of the talks.
Tehran and Riyadh have had a rocky relationship over the last four decades. Riyadh cut diplomatic ties in January 2016 after its embassy was stormed by angry protesters who were furious at Saudi Arabia’s execution of a Shiite cleric. The rivalry between the Sunni kingdom and the Shiite republic underpins much of the tension in the Middle East, especially those between Tehran and its allies, and those of Riyadh and its partners.
In December, the Saudi ambassador to the United Nations said that the Kingdom wanted more substantive talks and accused Iran of playing “games” in the negotiations. “We would like to push these discussions towards substantive issues that involve the behavior of the Iranian government in the region,” Riyadh’s United Nations envoy Abdullah al-Mouallimi told a Saudi outlet at the time.
“But as long as the Iranians continue to play games with these talks they are not going to go anywhere, the Iranians take a long-term attitude towards these talks,” he noted. “We are not interested in talks for the sake of talks.”
However, as America’s focus has recently shifted from the region to other international threats, such as China and Russia, the Gulf countries allied with Washington have opted to de-escalate tension with Tehran.
It is not clear how the negotiations could succeed in Baghdad given Tehran’s rhetoric when it comes to its proxy forces present in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen that it refers to as “Resistance Axis.”
Masjedi was unapologetic about Tehran’s support and financing of the proxy forces. “The Resistance Axis is a reality that cannot be denied… the Resistance Axis is receiving explicit support from the Islamic Republic and the reason for this is because they are working for the interest of their own people and we don’t care what America thinks,” Masjedi said during the interview.
Iran has no plan to stop assisting its proxy forces, he added.
Saudi Arabia sees Iranian proxy forces such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Houthis in Yemen, and a number of militias in Iraq such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq as a threat to the region’s security.
Iran on the other hand wants foreign forces, including the US-led coalition, to leave the region and has proposed that the regional countries maintain the security of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East.
“Iran is against the presence of the foreign forces and in particular Americans in the region because they have no benefit for the people of the region …. I believe the Americans are creating conspiracies... So they can force themselves upon the region,” Masjedi said while addressing a number of issues in the interview.
The ambassador was also asked if he was referring to the Turkish forces, which have dozens of outposts deep inside the Iraqi territory and mostly in the Kurdistan Region.
“We have great respect for Iraqi sovereignty,” he said, noting that Iran believes the Iraqi government and its security forces are able to maintain peace and security in the country.
Masjedi was speaking to al-Ahad TV, the official mouthpiece of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a notorious militia affiliated with the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), known to have targeted the US forces in Iraq.
Masjedi is a former senior commander of IRGC Quds Force and a close associate of General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike at Baghdad airport in January 2020 alongside the Deputy Commander of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis.
Masjedi said that a joint judicial committee has been formed between Iraq and Iran to follow up on the killing of the two commanders and the committee has met on several occasions both in Tehran and Baghdad.
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