TEHRAN -- Iran’s Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian will travel to Saudi Arabia soon at the invitation of his Saudi counterpart and the kingdom’s senior officials, the foreign ministry announced on Monday.
Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said the two sides will discuss bilateral ties and the latest regional and international developments.
Saudi Arabia severed its relations with Iran in 2016 after its embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad were attacked during protests over the execution of Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
The two countries signed a normalization agreement in March, under which the two committed to ending a seven-year rift.
Kanaani said a delegation of Iranian experts and officials visited Deh Rawood water measuring station in Afghanistan for the first time in more than five decades to verify Kabul’s claim of water shortage.
Iran and Afghanistan are locked in a dispute over the Hirmand water supply, which rises in the Hindu Kush Mountains west of Kabul and flows in an arc southwest until it empties out into the Hamoun wetlands, located in Iran’s arid Sistan and Baluchestan Province.
The Islamic Republic says Afghanistan is blocking the flow of water, but the Taliban administration claims there is not enough water to flow into Iran.
Kanaani noted that the delegation has returned to Iran and their
reports on the visit are being examined.
Following more than a century of rifts, the two countries signed a treaty in 1973 to establish a means of regulating their use of the river.
Iran must receive an annual share of 820 million cubic meters from the Hirmand under the accord, which Afghanistan has grossly violated in letter and spirit, endangering the lives of many Iranians who rely on Hamoun wetlands for drinking water, agriculture, and fishing.