BAGHDAD (Dispatches) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi says talks in Baghdad between representatives from Iran and Saudi Arabia as part of a diplomatic process aimed at mending relations have made “remarkable progress” and entered advanced stages.
Speaking at a press conference here, Kadhimi said his country has played an important role in bringing the views of the regional countries closer by hosting talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
“Iraq has hosted five different dialogues in these two years, of which Saudi–Iran talks are just one,” he said, emphasizing that the talks have made remarkable progress.
On May 24, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said there had been “some but not enough” progress in talks with Iran, and that Riyadh’s hands remained outstretched to Tehran.
“We have made some progress but not enough. Our hands are stretched out,” Prince Faisal told a World Economic Forum panel. “We continue to encourage our neighbors in Iran to lean into what can be a very, very important sea change in our region,” he said.
The top Saudi diplomat said a “new era of cooperation” could deliver benefits for all.
The remarks came after Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh confirmed that Tehran had held a fifth round of “positive” talks with Riyadh in Baghdad on normalizing bilateral relations.
In March, Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran welcomed Saudi Arabia’s “new inclination” to fix mutual relations, and that managing the differences between the two sides would benefit both nations as well as other friendly states.
Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic relations with Iran in January 2016 after Iranian protesters, enraged by the Saudi execution of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, stormed its embassy in Tehran.
In the years that followed, the kingdom pursued a confrontational foreign policy toward the Islamic Republic, but that stance appears to have changed.
The two neighbors remain deeply divided over a set of regional issues, mainly the destructive Saudi war on Yemen.