TEHRAN —
Iraq’s prime minister met with leaders in rivals
Saudi Arabia and Iran on Sunday, discussing regional stability as part of
Baghdad’s efforts to mediate between the two Middle East heavyweights.
اضافة اعلان
Mustafa Al-Kadhemi visited
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran, after earlier meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman in the Saudi city of Jeddah — pushing forward a bid to reconcile the
foes that have had no diplomatic ties since 2016.
Raisi appeared to welcome the mediation bid, saying:
“We stressed the need for regional leaders to negotiate with one another to
resolve the region’s problems.”
Iran and Iraq “believe that peace and tranquility in
the region depend on the role of all regional leaders,” he added in a news
conference with Kadhemi.
Raisi welcomed an April ceasefire in Yemen — where
Tehran and Riyadh back opposing sides in the seven-year civil war.
But he criticized all forms of rapprochement with
Israel, amid hints that an upcoming visit by
US President Joe Biden to Riyadh
could herald improved relations between the kingdom and Israel.
“The normalization of relations with the Zionist
regime or the presence of strangers in the region will not resolve any problems
in the region, but rather aggravate them,” Raisi said.
Israel established diplomatic ties with the UAE,
Bahrain, and Morocco in 2020 as part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords.
Kadhemi said that he and Raisi had “agreed on the
need to ... preserve regional calm and fight food insecurity”.
Iran and
Saudi Arabia support rival sides in several
conflict zones around the region.
‘Reconciliation is near’
Iraq has over the past year hosted five rounds of talks between Riyadh
and Tehran, with the last session held in April.
Kadhemi said at
the time he believed that “reconciliation is near” between the rivals, a
further reflection of shifting political alignments across the region.
During Kadhemi’s
meeting Sunday with Prince Mohammed, the two addressed “bilateral relations and
opportunities for joint cooperation”, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.
“They exchanged
points of view on a number of issues that would contribute to supporting and
strengthening regional security and stability,” it added.
On Saturday, an
Iraqi cabinet source said that Kadhemi’s trip “comes in the context of talks
that
Riyadh and Tehran recently held in Baghdad”.
The source said
those talks “represented a road map for mending relations and returning to the
right course of strengthening bilateral relations” between Saudi Arabia and
Iran.
Saudi Arabia and
Iran have had no diplomatic ties for six years, since Iranian protesters
attacked Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran after the kingdom executed Shiite
cleric Nimr Al-Nimr.
Riyadh responded
by cutting relations with Tehran.
In early March,
Prince Mohammed said his country and Iran were “neighbors forever”, and that it
was “better for both of us to work it out and to look for ways in which we can
coexist”.
Riyadh also has
concerns about Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, while Iran has always denied wanting
a nuclear arsenal.
After his arrival in the
kingdom, Kadhemi performed umra, the minor pilgrimage, in the holy city of
Mecca, according to pictures released by his office.
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