Prince Faisal's Historic Visit: Reopening Saudi Embassy in Tehran

2023-06-17 11:01:00

A previous meeting between the Saudi foreign minister and his Iranian counterpart

Iranian government spokesman Ali Bahadri Jahromi announced, on Friday, that Prince Faisal will visit Iran and take measures to reopen his country’s embassy in Tehran.

Published in: Jun 17, 2023: 03:01 PM GST
Last updated: Jun 17, 2023: 03:30 PM GST

Iranian Al-Alam TV reported today, Saturday, the arrival of the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, to the Iranian capital, Tehran.

This is the first visit by a Saudi foreign minister to Iran in several years.

Yesterday, Friday, the Iranian government spokesman, Ali Bahadri Jahromi, announced that Prince Faisal will visit Iran and take measures to reopen his country’s embassy in Tehran.

The Saudi Foreign Minister is scheduled to meet with Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi and Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir Abdullahian, according to Al Arabiya correspondent.

On June 6, Tehran reopened its embassy in the Kingdom, nearly 3 months after announcing the agreement to restore diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The former Tehran embassy building, which had been closed for years, was reopened after it was recently fully restored, in the presence of the Iranian ambassador-designate to Saudi Arabia.

Last month, Tehran appointed a high-ranking diplomat, Ali Reza Enayati, as the new ambassador to the kingdom. Enayati currently holds the position of Deputy Foreign Minister after he was ambassador to Kuwait during the era of former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

These developments also came after the two countries exchanged, last April, a visit of two technical delegations in order to discuss the issue of reopening embassies.

Iranian embassy in Riyadh (archive – Archyde.com)

It is noteworthy that on March 10, Iran and Saudi Arabia reached an agreement sponsored by China to reopen their embassies and implement economic and security cooperation agreements signed more than 20 years ago.

Later, Tehran announced that it had invited Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz to visit the country.

It also indicated that the Iranian president had received an invitation to visit Riyadh.