Iranian FM says to meet Saudi counterpart soon

Iranian foreign minister said on Sunday that he will meet his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in the near future.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks to Iranian and foreign reporters at a press conference in Tehran, adding Iran and Saudi Arabia have agreed to arrange visits by technical teams to prepare the ground for sending diplomatic missions and reopening embassies.

He also noted that Iran's relations with Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates were upgraded to the level of ambassadors, and the bilateral ties with Saudi Arabia returned to normalcy after five rounds of fence-mending talks in Baghdad and other negotiations hosted by Beijing.

On the likeliness of improvements in Iran's relations with Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain following the rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, Amir-Abdollahian said that Tehran recently sent its delegation to Manama to visit the Iranian embassy as well as other diplomatic places there.

Amir-Abdollahian stressed that Iran welcomes the normalization of relations with neighboring and regional states, expressing hope that the existing obstacles to normalizing ties with Bahrain would be removed.

Iran maintains that Egypt is an important country and welcomes any improvement in bilateral relations, he noted.

The minister said that he held brief talks with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi on the sidelines of the Baghdad Conference for Cooperation and Partnership in Jordan last December, after which negotiations were held with Egyptian officials on improving bilateral political relations.

Amir-Abdollahian said during the same conference, he also held friendly and cordial talks with King Abdullah II of Jordan, in which the latter expressed willingness to visit Iran in the near future.

China, Saudi Arabia and Iran on March 10 announced that the latter two had reached a deal that included the agreement to resume diplomatic relations and reopen embassies and missions within two months.