Iran will reportedly resume talks with its regional rival, Saudi Arabia, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani came out with the news in his weekly conference today.
He announced that Riyadh and Tehran agreed to continue talks between them and that they could hold a new round in Baghdad. The claim came as Iran has hardly been hit by nationwide anti-regime protests for more than 100 days.
It is worth noting that Saudi Arabia and Iran previously held five rounds of negotiations mediated by Iraq. Still, according to some observers, the talks between the two countries halted due to Tehran's allegations that Saudi Arabia was playing a role in foreign incitement to the protests in Iran.
Previous report claimed that the two countries will not meet anytime soon.
“The Iranian-Saudi negotiations have stalled, and this will have a negative impact on the region,” said Amer al-Fayez, an Iraqi lawmaker and member of the parliamentary Foreign Relations Committee earlier this month.
On his first official visit to Tehran in November, al-Sudani inquired about resuming the talks and mentioned he would be traveling to the Saudi capital of Riyadh soon.
But the Iranians told him they would not meet with Saudi counterparts and accused the kingdom of supporting country-wide protests in Iran through Saudi-funded media channels, according to an official who is a member of Iraq’s ruling Coordination Framework coalition, an alliance of mostly Iran-backed groups.
