New Delhi: Donning a Palestinian keffiyeh, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Saudi Arabia last November for a summit on Gaza — the first time an Iranian president visited Saudi Arabia in over a decade. He also met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, months after the two countries restored ties under a deal brokered by China, following years of hostility.
Monday marked one year since the two countries agreed to reopen embassies, resume trade and cultural agreements and restore a security cooperation pact, among other issues.
Though the Palestinian cause has provided the regional foes common ground, analysts say tensions remain as they continue to struggle for influence in West Asia, especially via proxy conflicts such as in Yemen, Syria and Lebanon.
Their hostility dates back to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, when the Pahlavi monarchy was toppled by Shi’ite clerics. Religious differences have only muddied relations — Saudi Arabia views itself as the leading Sunni power while Iran is a Shi’ite theocracy. Riyadh and Tehran were also on opposing sides during the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
They severed diplomatic ties in 2016 following a series of events such as the 2015 Saudi-led intervention against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, Saudi Arabia’s beheading of Shi’ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr and the attack on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran in early 2016.
On 10 March, 2023, after a seven-year feud, the two Middle Eastern countries agreed to a China-mediated initiative to restore ties. A few high-level exchanges followed such as the Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers’ meeting in Tehran last June and the Iranian foreign minister’s audience with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince in Riyadh last August.
But as Giorgio Cafiero, adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University, wrote in a report last September, the two regional foes saw “cold peace” as their best option after years of hostility that did not serve either of their interests.
Bashir Ali Abbas, research associate, Council For Strategic and Defense Research (CSDR), told ThePrint: “The war in Gaza came as an unanticipated development for both states, but it had the effect of bringing Iranian and Saudi positions on a key regional issue in alignment (at least in the immediate sense, since both states are in favour of a ceasefire). It gives them more room to build trust because the current object of Iranian proxy armed action is the United States and Israel.”
Cooperating on Gaza, but ‘competition continues’
According to the Embassy of Iran in India, Riyadh and Tehran have been able to find good political cooperation on the Palestinian issue.
“The process of normalising relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia is well underway. The foreign ministers of the two countries met last week. The political cooperation between the two countries on regional issues such as the Palestinian issue is very good. We expect economic cooperation between the two countries to expand in the near future,” the embassy told ThePrint in a statement.
ThePrint contacted the Saudi Arabia Embassy in India for a comment but did not receive a response. This report will be updated if and when it is received.
The restoration of ties was seen as a relief for Saudi Arabia in deterring Iran-backed militias to some degree, while it was necessary for Iran, which had suffered regional isolation – that too under the weight of Western sanctions.The Israel-Hamas conflict also threw a spanner in the works of American officials who had been striving to normalise ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Earlier this year, in a statement from its foreign ministry, Saudi Arabia made it clear that this would not happen without a path to an independent Palestinian state.
A Statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the discussions between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America on the Arab-Israeli peace process. pic.twitter.com/UBWc30iv1V
— Foreign Ministry 🇸🇦 (@KSAmofaEN) February 7, 2024
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“For the Saudis, the move made sure Houthi attacks against Saudi refineries ceased. There’s a certain realisation that they will have to address some of these issues head-on regionally and bilaterally, instead of waiting for US policies to decide for them,” Kabir Taneja, Fellow at Observer Research Foundation (ORF), told ThePrint.
In 2019, two major Saudi oil installations were hit by drones, causing a spike in global oil prices. Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the strikes and Iran denied having a hand in it. In 2022, the Houthis claimed a drone attack on a refinery in Riyadh.
A.K. Pasha, professor at JNU’s Centre for West Asian Studies, says there are changes in the Saudi-Iran relationship “outwardly”, but their rivalry and competition in the Arab world remains.
“Outwardly, the relations have been normalised by reopening embassies and exchanging ambassadors. But competition between these two Islamic giants in the Arab world continues in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. The Israel-Hamas war has only cast a shadow over an already slow process of rapprochement,” Pasha told ThePrint.
Reuters reported in December that Saudi Arabia had urged the US to show restraint in responding to attacks by Yemen’s Houthis against ships in the Red Sea, which surprised many given it was Riyadh that led a coalition of countries to launch the 2015 military intervention in Yemen.
“Asking the Americans to show restraint was an interesting move but not entirely surprising. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and others were under pressure from the Americans to join their naval coalition in the Red Sea, so maybe it was pushback against that,” Pasha said.
Meanwhile, Taneja pointed out that China’s mediation diplomacy isn’t going as planned. “Last year, China’s mediation diplomacy seemed to be taking shape. But since the October 7 attack against Israel, Beijing has taken a much more overt pro-Palestine stance, shedding away from what earlier seemed to be a non-partisan, mediator-led policy. So, while the Iran-Saudi détente still stands and works for both Riyadh and Tehran, for China, the story is turning out to be slightly different.”
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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Nice story. Didn’t know that Saudis asked Americans to show restraint while attacking Houthis. Maybe because of the talks going on between the Saudis & the Houthis. Houthis’ attempt of gaining leverage on the talks through Red sea attacks is achieved some fruition.