Iranian, Saudi FMs agree to meet in coming days

Wang Yi (C), a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office

of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, attends a closing meeting of the talks between the Saudi delegation led by Musaad bin Mohammed Al-Aiban (L), Saudi Arabia's Minister of State, Member of the Council of Ministers and National Security Advisor, and Iranian delegation led by Admiral Ali Shamkhani (R), Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, in Beijing, capital of China, March 10, 2023. Wang Yi presided over the closing meeting here on Friday. [Photo/Xinhua]

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud agreed in a phone call on Sunday to meet in the coming days.

The Iranian foreign minister expressed satisfaction with the "positive trend" of the bilateral relation, highlighting Tehran's determination to promote its good-neighborliness policy, according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry's website.

The Saudi foreign minister, for his part, stressed the necessity of constant contact and meetings between the two countries' officials, describing the ongoing trend of measures by Tehran and Riyadh as "positive and satisfactory."

The foreign ministers also discussed the latest condition of the agreement signed between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Beijing on March 10 on the normalization of diplomatic relations and reopening of the embassies and missions within two months.

This was the third phone conversation between the two top diplomats in the past weeks following the signing of the agreement, according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry's website.

The ministry, however, did not specify the date and venue of the upcoming meeting.

In another phone conversation in late March, the two foreign ministers had exchanged views on holding their bilateral meeting in the fasting month of Ramadhan, which will end in late April.

Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran in early 2016 in response to the attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran after the kingdom executed a Shiite cleric.