23142736Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to hold the first public meeting at the chancellor level in Baghdad after several rounds of meetings secrets in Iraq, the country that mediated between the two arch-enemies for the resumption of relations, informed this Saturday the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Fuad Hussein. “Iraq hosted five rounds of closed-door talks between the two rival countries at the intelligence level and security chiefs… But now Saudi Arabia and Iran have agreed to hold the first meeting at the foreign ministers’ level in Baghdad,” he detailed. the head of Iraqi diplomacy in an interview with Kurdish broadcaster Rudaw. Hussein added that this time the meeting will be “public”, although so far there is no date for the meeting.
Saudi Arabia and Iran, considered the Sunni and Shia powers in the region, respectively, have not had diplomatic relations since 1200, when Riyadh broke them after attacks on its diplomatic offices in the Persian country after the execution of an important Shia cleric in the Arab kingdom. Talks between the two nations began in secret in April last year with Iraq’s mediation, although their existence was not publicly confirmed until May. In mid-January, Iran sent three diplomats to Saudi Arabia as representatives of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the first time in six years that Tehran has had a presence in the country with which it disputes hegemony in the Middle East. On the last day of July, the Saudi Chancellor, Faisal bin Farhan, indicated in Jeddah that his country is committed to continuing negotiations with Iran in a dialogue that he described as “positive”, but still without the desired results.
