Iran and Saudi Arabia announced today (Friday) in a joint statement that they agreed to renew their mutual relations. The Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, Ali Simkhani, began intensive talks with his Saudi counterpart a few weeks ago in China, after the Iranian president visited the capital, Beijing. The talks, which were mediated by China, bore fruit and the two countries agreed to renew their diplomatic ties and reopen the various embassies and agencies – within two months at the most.
The Iranian and Saudi foreign ministers will meet soon to discuss the implementation of the decision and the arrangements required for the appointment of the ambassadors. According to the statement, Iran, Saudi Arabia and China declared their intention to make all efforts “to strengthen regional and international peace and security”.
The United States stated in relation to the renewal of relations that they welcome “any effort that helps put an end to the war in Yemen, and to calm tensions in the Middle East.” On the other hand, both ends of the political map in Israel expressed great concern about the move. Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee Yuli Edelstein said that “the world does not stop while we are busy here with power struggles and clashes. The renewal of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia is very bad for Israel. The time has come to sit down, talk and resolve our differences in order to reunite and unite against the existential threat to us. Only together will we win.”
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also expressed concern about the renewal of relations between the countries and stated that this is “a serious and dangerous development for Israel and is a political victory for Iran. This is a fatal blow to the effort to build a regional coalition against Iran.” Bennett placed the responsibility for this on the Netanyahu government and said: “This is a resounding failure of the Netanyahu government and stems from a combination of political neglect with general weakness and internal conflict in the country.”
The former prime minister added that “the countries of the world and the region are watching Israel in conflict with a government that is not functioning, that is engaged in systematic self-destruction. Then those countries choose a side. The Netanyahu government is a resounding economic, political and security failure, and every day of its action endangers the State of Israel. We need for a broad national emergency government, which will work to restore the many damages that have been caused.”
The head of the opposition Yair Lapid also attacked and said that this is “a complete and dangerous failure of the Israeli government’s foreign policy. This is a collapse of the regional defense wall that we started to build against Iran. This is what happens when you deal with legal madness all day long instead of doing the work with Iran and strengthening relations with United States”.
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At the same time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met today with Italian businessmen and the Italian Minister of Industry and Trade Adolfo Orso, and told them: “I have a goal to achieve normalization and peace with Saudi Arabia. The economic options are to connect a pipeline from Saudi Arabia to Israel to the port of Haifa, and from there to Europe. These are all options Real, not imaginary.”
Saudi Arabia severed relations with Iran in January 2016, after Iranian protesters attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran and the Saudi consulate in Mashhad. The Iranian government, for its part, harshly attacked Saudi Arabia following the execution of the Saudi Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr.