The Iranian Foreign Ministry said Tehran and Saudi Arabia will exchange mutual visits, including high-level ones…reports Asian Lite News
Iran said it has formally invited Saudi Arabia’s King Salman to visit Tehran, following the agreement to restore ties reached last month between the two sides.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry said Tehran and Saudi Arabia will exchange mutual visits, including high-level ones, in line with their agreements to expand cooperation.
Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani made the remarks on Monday at a press conference here when responding to a question about any further detail on a possible trip by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Saudi Arabia, reports Xinhua news agency.
Kanaani said Raisi has received a visit invitation from Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, to which the President has responded by inviting the monarch to visit Tehran.
Foreign Ministers of the two countries have also invited each other for visits, Kanaani added.
The spokesman, however, stressed that such exchange visits will only be taken following necessary planning and the implementation of required executive steps.
Kanaani noted that the two sides are on the path of implementing two comprehensive agreements, one to expand economic, trade, cultural, and sports cooperation with each other and the other to increase security collaboration.
He stressed that delegations from the two countries will carry out further exchanges in the near future to implement the two agreements.
Kanaani expressed optimism that the Tehran-Riyadh rapprochement would enhance regional cooperation and convergence and benefit the whole region.
When asked whether the Tehran-Riyadh agreement would impact talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, Kanaani said the relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia do not have any specific relation to the nuclear talks.
Embassies to open by May 9
An Iranian diplomat said that embassies are expected to reopen in the two countries by May 9.
Alireza Enayati, a director general of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, made the remarks in an interview published on Monday with the official news agency IRNA, commenting on steps taken by the two countries to reopen their diplomatic missions.
He noted that to this end, Iran has been hosting a technical team from Saudi Arabia since April 8, saying after visiting the premises of the country’s embassy in Tehran, the Saudi delegation, on Friday, arrived in Mashhad to visit the building of Saudi Arabia’s consulate general in the northeastern Iranian city.
Enayati added another Saudi delegation is also scheduled to visit Iran to discuss the reopening of the diplomatic missions.
He said, within the same framework, Iran on Wednesday sent two delegations to Saudi Arabia, of which one has been stationed in Riyadh to prepare for the reopening of the Iranian embassy and the other in Jeddah to reactivate the country’s consulate general and representative office to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
Enayati noted that Iran has started its activities of repairing the buildings of its embassy and consulate general in Saudi Arabia to prepare for reopening.
