Tehran called on Riyadh to release an Iranian citizen who was arrested during the Hajj season, according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry, at a time when the two regional rivals are conducting a dialogue in an effort to improve relations severed between them for years.
Iran revealed for the first time about this arrest in a statement to its foreign ministry about a call between the minister, Hussein Amir Abdollahian, and his Iraqi counterpart, Fouad Hussein, whose country is mediating between the two parties in the dialogue that began last year.
“During this call, the Iranian Foreign Minister followed up on the fate of an Iranian citizen who was arrested in Saudi Arabia during the Hajj, and called on (his Iraqi counterpart) to convey a message (to the Saudi side) for his release,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement today.
The statement did not provide details about the concerned citizen or the reasons for his arrest during the Hajj season in early July.
The news of the arrest comes about two weeks after Baghdad announced that it was preparing for a “public” meeting between the foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia, raising the level of the dialogue that began between the two countries in April 2021.
The two parties held five sessions in the Iraqi capital, the last of which was last April, attended by officials in the secretariat of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council and the Saudi Intelligence Presidency.
Iran confirmed last month that it had reached Saudi Arabia’s agreement to raise the dialogue to the “political level”, knowing that Iranian officials had previously confirmed that such a step might lead to faster results between the two sides.
Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran in January 2016, after its embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad were attacked by protesters over Riyadh’s execution of the Saudi opposition Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.
Tehran and Riyadh are the two most prominent regional powers in the Gulf, and they are on opposite sides in most regional files, most notably the conflict in Yemen, where Riyadh leads a military coalition in support of the internationally recognized government, and accuses Tehran of supporting the Houthi rebels who control large areas in the north of the country, most notably Sanaa.
Likewise, Saudi Arabia expresses its concern about Iran’s regional influence and accuses it of “interfering” in Arab countries such as Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, and is concerned about its nuclear program and missile capabilities.