Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian has called for warm relations between Tehran and Riyadh and said he is ready to visit Saudi Arabia when opportune. During his first press conference since taking office in July, he suggested Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman could be invited to Iran.
“We are brothers, so there is no place for hostility”, Mr Pezeshkian said, as he welcomed any effort “to solve differences” between Shias and Sunnis, Islam’s two main branches. While Iran is the largest Shia country, Saudi Arabia hosts Islam’s two key pilgrim sites, Mecca and Medina, and is regarded as holy land by Sunnis and Shias.
In March 2023, China mediated reconciliation between Tehran and Riyadh after seven years of estrangement following violent protests in Iran after Riyadh’s execution of dissident Saudi Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Both countries reopened embassies and exchanged ambassadors in 2023, but a 2001 security co-operation agreement has not been revived. Relations have not progressed since Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian called for dialogue during a visit to Riyadh a year ago.
While running for the presidency as a reformist, Mr Pezeshkian promised to end Iran’s regional and international isolation and revive negotiations on the 2015 agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions. In May 2018, the deal was revoked by then US president Donald Trump, who reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy. Iran’s supreme leader and ultimate authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggested in August that Iran could be ready to reopen talks on the deal that have been suspended since 2022.
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Rejecting US allegations that Iran is arming Russia to fight in Ukraine and providing hypersonic missiles to Yemen’s Houthis, Mr Pezeshkian said, “The Americans must show they are not hostile towards us. We did not establish bases around their country, nor did we impose sanctions on them.”
Last week, the Iranian president made his first foreign trip, to Iraq, where he met his counterpart Abdul Latif Rashid and prime minister Shia al-Sudani, signed multiple economic and cultural co-operation agreements and discussed Israel’s war on Gaza. Mr Pezeshkian also visited a monument dedicated to Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by the US in Baghdad in 2020. During meetings in Iraq’s Kurdish semi-autonomous region, Mr Pezeshkian held discussions with president Nechirvan Barzani and other officials.
Following Washington’s 2003 ousting of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, the US invited to return to Baghdad pro-Iranian dissident Shias who had close relations with Tehran. Iraq’s current government is dominated by militia leaders loyal to Iran who have exerted pressure to secure an agreement this month for withdrawal in stages during 2025 and 2026 of the residual 2,500 US troops in Iraq. Following the Gaza war, Iran-backed militias have mounted 70 attacks on US forces in Iraq.
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