Reuters

Riyadh

Saudi Arabia has invited Iran’s foreign minister to visit, Riyadh said yesterday, hinting at the possibility of a thaw between the two countries.

Iranian President Hassan Rohani has adopted a conciliatory tone towards Tehran’s neighbours since taking office last year, but while Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif has visited other Gulf Arab states, he has not yet been to Saudi Arabia.

Rapprochement between the two countries would have ramifications across the Middle East, potentially cooling political and military struggles in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain and Yemen.

However, with Riyadh and Tehran backing opposing sides in Syria’s civil war, and accusing each other of fuelling the bloodshed, the prospects for any meaningful detente now appear slim, analysts say.

Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told a news conference that Zarif had been given an invitation to the kingdom but that despite Iran’s past declarations of a wish to improve ties, the visit had not transpired. He did not say when Riyadh issued the invitation or if Iran had formally responded.

“Any time that (Zarif) sees fit to come, we are willing to receive him. Iran is a neighbour, we have relations with them and we will negotiate with them, we will talk with them,” he said.

Iran backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Riyadh has given aid to rebels trying to oust him.

Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of fomenting unrest among Shias in Bahrain and in its own Eastern Province, and also charges Tehran with plotting to assassinate its envoy in Washington in 2011.

Iran denies those accusations, as well as Saudi suspicions, shared with Western powers, that it has been using its declared civilian nuclear energy programme as a front to covertly develop an atomic bomb capability.

But since taking office in August, the moderate Rohani has overseen a conciliatory shift in Iran’s hitherto confrontational foreign relations.

Although Iran’s president has a big voice in determining Tehran’s foreign policy, the ultimate say is in the hands of clerical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“It’s only a matter of time before Zarif takes up the invitation and goes to Riyadh. It’s a question of co-ordination at home with the leader. But it’s inevitable that he go and important that he does,” said Anoush Ehteshami, director of the Al-Sabah programme for international relations at Durham University in Britain.

“The Saudis are calling his bluff and saying ‘come’.”

Saudi officials have remained suspicious, however, and have accused Iran of being “an occupying power” in Syria, where they describe Assad as carrying out genocide against the country’s civilian population via air strikes in urban areas.

“Our hope is that Iran becomes part of the effort to make the region as safe and as prosperous as possible and not become part of the problem,” the Saudi foreign minister said.