After five years of severing diplomatic ties, the two major regional rivals, Iran and Saudi Arabia, have held direct talks with the aim of reducing tensions and re-establishing ties. The first round of Saudi-Iranian talks, revealed by the Financial Times, citing officials familiar with the talks, took place on April 9 in Baghdad. These negotiations, if we put aside the bilateral coordination for the pilgrimage to Mecca, are considered the first major political discussions between the two countries since 2016. They come as US President Joe Biden wants to relaunch the agreement on the Iranian nuclear of 2015 and defuse regional tensions.
“Members of the Iranian and Saudi intelligence services met in Baghdad and discussed all contentious issues,” confirm to World a source in the entourage of the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mustafa Al-Kadhimi. According to the Iranian daily Arman-é Meli, the Saudi director general of intelligence, Khalid Al-Humaidan, was part of the delegation from Riyadh, and officials of the Al-Quds forces (branch of the Revolutionary Guards, responsible for extraterritorial operations) were present in the Iranian delegation, headed by a representative of the Supreme Security Council.
In January 2016, Riyadh decided to sever diplomatic relations with Tehran following the sacking of its embassy in the Iranian capital by a crowd of rioters protesting against the execution of a Saudi Shiite cleric, sentenced to death by the authorities. of the kingdom who saw him as an agent of Tehran.
The resumption of contact is hardly a complete surprise to good Gulf observers. “For a year and a half, we have witnessed a series of small steps, intended to slowly and gradually create an atmosphere conducive to relaunching dialogue”, says Hussein Ibish, analyst at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
Vulnerability of Saudis
These foot calls took the form of two forums calling for a return to the negotiating table, published successively in the New York Times and the Guardian, by a prominent Saudi-Iranian duo: Abdulaziz Al-Sager, director of the Gulf Research Center, who is close to King Salman and Hossein Mousavian, professor at Princeton and former spokesperson for the Islamic Republic’s team of negotiators on the nuclear issue.
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