(Reuters) – Saudi and Iranian officials held direct talks this month in a bid to ease tensions between the two enemies, a senior Iranian official and two regional sources said as Washington worked to relaunch a nuclear pact in 2015 with Tehran and end the war in Yemen.
The April 9 meeting in Iraq, first reported https://www.ft.com/content/852e94b8-ca97-4917-9cc4-e2faef4a69c8 by the Financial Times on Sunday, did not lead to any discovery, the Iranian official and one of them said regional sources familiar with the problem.
The regional source said the meeting focused on Yemen, where a Saudi-led military coalition has been fighting the Houthi group aligned with Iran since March 2015.
“This was a low-level meeting to explore whether there could be a way to alleviate ongoing tensions in the region,” the Iranian official said, adding that it was based on Iraq’s request.
The Iraqi prime minister held talks with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia earlier this month and also visited the United Arab Emirates.
The second regional source said talks had also reached Lebanon, which is facing a political vacuum amid a severe financial crisis. The Arab Gulf states are alarmed by the growing role of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.
Saudi authorities did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment. The FT report said that a senior Saudi official denied that there had been talks with Iran.
Sunni power in the Gulf of Saudi Arabia severed ties with Shiite Iran in January 2016, following the assassination of its embassy in Tehran in turn over Riyadh’s execution of a Shiite Muslim cleric.
A Western diplomat in the region said the United States and Britain had been informed in advance of the Saudi-Iranian negotiations, but “did not see the result.”
Washington and Tehran are holding indirect talks in Vienna to revive the world powers’ nuclear deal with Iran, which former US President Donald Trump dropped in 2018. Tehran has violated several nuclear restrictions after Trump re-imposed sanctions.
Riyadh last week called for a nuclear deal with stronger parameters and the involvement of the Gulf states, which are concerned about Iran’s missile program and its support for regional proxies.
The United States is also pushing for a ceasefire agreement in Yemen, which Riyadh and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government have welcomed. The Houthis have not yet accepted and have continued cross-border rocket and drone attacks on Saudi cities.
A Saudi Foreign Ministry official told Reuters last week that confidence-building measures could pave the way for extended nuclear talks involving Gulf Arabs.
(Reporting by the Dubai and Baghdad offices; additional reporting by Aakriti Bhalla in Bengaluru; Writing by Ghaida Ghantous; Editing by Gerry Doyle, Raissa Kasolowsky, Alexandra Hudson)