June 17 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister, Faisal bin Farhan, arrived this Saturday in Tehran, the capital of Iran, to hold a meeting with his counterpart, Hosein Amirabdolahian, in what is the first visit by a Saudi diplomatic chief to the city since the break in relations between the two countries seven years ago, and right now in the process of complete normalization.
Bin Farhan’s visit, confirmed by the semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA, will be dominated by the reopening of the Saudi Embassy in Iran, a process culminated after months of negotiations between the two countries.
Tehran and Riyadh severed diplomatic relations in 2016 following an attack on Saudi missions in Iran by protesters calling for a halt to the execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr and are now locked indirectly through the Yemen war, where Riyadh backs the Yemeni government while Tehran does the same with the Huthi insurgency.
The final push came in March, after five days of talks in Beijing between the top security officials of their respective countries, the Saudi National Security Adviser Musad bin Mohamed al Aiban and the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of the Republic. Iran’s Islamic Admiral Ali Shamjani.
The signing of the agreement culminates for the moment two years of marked negotiations, according to what was seen this Friday, by a preponderant role of China as an international mediator in conflicts like this, a constant headache for the oil industry.
