Iran and Saudi Arabia announced on March 11 that they had signed a Chinese-brokered deal to reconcile and restore diplomatic relations around seven years after ties were cut when Iranian protestors attacked the Saudi diplomatic mission in Tehran in outrage to the Sunni kingdom’s execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said that President Ebrahim Raisi had “invited him [King Salman] in a letter to visit Tehran” during his weekly press briefing on Monday.
Last month, Raisi “welcomed” an invitation from Salman to visit Riyadh after the Saudi monarch invited the Iranian leader while welcoming the reconciliation between the two countries.
During the presser, Kanaani also expressed hope that the embassies and consulates of both countries will be reopened by May 9, as mentioned in the agreement brokered by Beijing.
The Chinese-brokered rapprochement followed two years of mediation from Iraq, with Baghdad previously hosting five rounds of talks beginning in 2021 between the regional powers which brought them closer to the final agreement reached in Beijing. Oman also mediated discussions.
“We expect that mutual visits by officials of the two countries, including at the level of foreign ministers, will take place soon” before the embassies reopen, Kanaani said after the top diplomats of Tehran and Riyadh met in China on April 6.
The Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Shiite-majority Iran had rocky relations since 1979, when Shiite revolutionaries came to power in Iran and pledged to export their revolution to the world, including Gulf countries.
Both nations have also supported opposing forces in several conflict zones across the region, most notably in Yemen, where Iran backs the Houthi rebels while Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition supporting the government.
