Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman arrived in Iran on Thursday, marking the highest-level Saudi visit to the country in decades.
Prince Khalid’s visit comes about two years after Riyadh and Tehran normalized relations under a China-brokered deal in 2023. The visit signals that Saudi Arabia supports the negotiations between the US and Iran and opposes a potential US-Israeli attack on Iran.
While in Tehran, Prince Khalid met with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and delivered a letter from his father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz.
“We believe that relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Saudi Arabia will be beneficial for both countries, and that the two nations can complement each other,” Khamenei said during the meeting, according to his website.
Khamenei said the improving relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have faced opposition from “enemies” in the region. “We must overcome these hostile motives, and we are prepared in this regard,” he said. “It is far better for brothers in the region to cooperate with and assist each other than to depend on others.”
Prince Khalid said the purpose of the visit was to expand “relations with Iran and to collaborate across all sectors.” He said he hoped “that the constructive discussions we’ve had will lead to even stronger relations between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran than ever before.”
During the visit, Prince Khalid also met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Akbar Ahmadian, and Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces.
Prince Khalid’s visit to Iran comes ahead of a second round of negotiations between US and Iranian officials, which will be held in Rome. Riyadh’s warning relations with Tehran are significant in the context of the US-Iran talks since Saudi Arabia strongly opposed the Iran nuclear deal that was negotiated by the Obama administration.
Was this in western media? Wow! A precursor to Prince Khalid’s visit are these excerpts from region analysts. It seems Israel's insane brutality is bringing the Shi'a and Sunni together in a rare opportunity to rebalance the power in the region in favor of peace and stability. Hope and prayers. Thank you, China!
More…
That could very well be the case…!
Old Arab proverb:
"My brother and I against my cousin; my cousin and I against the stranger."
… and humanity against Israel
https://sonar21.com/saudi-and-iranian-ties-strengthen-on-the-eve-of-the-next-round-of-talks-between-washington-and-tehran/
It's difficult for the Saudi leadership to present and promote their neutrality given the Saudi-Iranian, Sunni-Shia, Wahabi-Syrian genocide history, and American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia.
International law won't matter when Iran and the Houthis empty their missile and artillery inventories.
Shia Sunni divison doesnt go back hundreds of years. It doesnt go back beyond 200 years .It was created by British first time in Indian subcontinent. In 1909 it was reemphasized by British PM as a politucal instrument in respect to control of Arab, Eshienhower refulled the tension openly bringing religion as a tool of psychological manipulation to suppress nationalism in Arab land. The Shia Sunni fight is not ideological .It was about the politucal succession after the death of the prophet of islam. It lost its relevance soon after until Iran became a theocrtaic state in 1980 but with legitimiacy .Saudi saw this as a threat and walked into the trap set by the old Anglo Saxon mindset. Even Iran 's turn to Shia was recent, not more than 400 years when to develop an identity of its own against Ottoman ,it decided to become Shia .
Iran became majority Shia under the Safavids in the early 1500s, that's over 500 years ago. It had nothing to do with developing an identity of its own against the Ottoman Empire. You know why? Because they already had an identity of their own, a culture and civilization stretching back over 7,000 years of recorded history.
You clearly know very little of Iranian history. Most of the Iranian-speaking populations were not converted to Sunni Islam because of prohibitions imposed beginning with the Umayyads and practice of indigenous religion among ethnic Persians and other Iranian-speakers persisted well into the 1500s when Shia became the state religion of the newly reconstituted Persian Empire of the Safavids, which was in direct continuity with the Sassanian Empire and its traditions.
Iran has always existed, has always been a Persian civilization from the time of the Achaemenids, and has always charted its own independent course through history.
It had eevrything to create a contrast against the Ottoman .Why did they choose what they chose at that time ? Egypt Syria also did not become muslim majority and became only after hundreds of years following the Arab conquest ,they did become .
It's a lot deeper than that…! US and Israel won't like that…!