Saudis, Iran Restore Relations With Accord Brokered by China

"RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations Friday in a deal mediated by China, ending seven years of estrangement and jolting the geopolitics of the Middle East.

The deal signals a sharp increase in Beijing's influence in a region where the U.S. has long been the dominant power broker, and could complicate efforts by the U.S. and Israel to strengthen a regional alliance to confront Tehran as it expands its nuclear program. It comes as the U.S. has been trying to broker a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, an effort now clouded with uncertainty.

China in recent years has built closer economic ties with Iran and Saudi Arabia, both of which are important suppliers of oil to the world's second-largest economy. But this bridge-building effort is the first time Beijing has intervened so directly in the Mideast's political rivalries.

Relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, long aligned with Washington, have grown strained over America's diminishing security guarantees and Riyadh's decision to cut oil production to keep crude prices high during Ukraine events.

The agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia was hammered out behind closed doors in Beijing between top officials of the two countries, they said in a joint statement. Chinese leader Xi Jinping raised the idea of the talks most recently during a state visit to Riyadh in December, according to people familiar with the matter.

As part of the deal, Iran pledged to halt attacks against Saudi Arabia, including from Houthi rebels it backs in the Yemen civil war, according to Saudi, Iranian and U.S. officials. Iran and Saudi Arabia will reopen their embassies and missions on each other's soil within two months and agreed that their foreign ministers will hold a summit soon to hammer out other details.

For Tehran, the accord eases the international isolation it has faced since antigovernment protests last fall and the collapse of talks aimed at restoring a 2015 international nuclear deal dashed its hopes of relief from economic sanctions. For Riyadh, it gives the kingdom more leverage as it seeks new U.S. security guarantees from the Biden administration.

"For Iran it's about escaping diplomatic isolation. For China, it's about deepening their engagement in the region and showing it's not just an energy consumer. And for Saudis it's about the Americans," said Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations and former State Department official and former U.S. diplomat.

Re-establishing diplomatic relations isn't likely to immediately lessen the longstanding security and sectarian tensions that have divided Riyadh and Tehran for decades and fueled their competition for regional dominance, analysts said.

Ties between the two countries were cut in 2016 after the Saudi Embassy in Tehran was overrun amid protests over the execution of a prominent Shiite cleric by the Saudi government. Since then, the Iran-Saudi rift has represented the often violent schism between Shiite and Sunni Muslims that has dominated the Middle East for decades.

The Saudis and Iranians have backed opposite sides in conflicts ranging from Syria to Yemen for nearly a decade. In 2019, they were on the brink of war when Iran was blamed for missile and drone attacks on a Saudi oil field.

The current rapprochement follows signs that the proxy wars waged by Riyadh and Tehran were cooling. A United Nations-supported truce between Saudi- and Iran-backed sides in the Yemen war has held for nearly a year. 

The civil war in Syria has largely been won by President Bashar al-Assad's government, with help from Iran and Russia.

Another Persian Gulf rival of Iran, the United Arab Emirates, reopened its embassy in Iran last year and has been pursuing trade and open lines of communication with Tehran.

The deal left unaddressed Iran's nuclear program, which has been a source of friction between Tehran and much of the world, including China, for two decades. 

U.S. sanctions on Iran have left its economy in ruins, with a currency crisis in recent weeks roiling the country.

The Saudi government had kept U.S. officials apprised of their discussions to re-establish diplomatic relations with Iran, which dates back to talks in recent years in Baghdad and Oman, and supported the efforts in the hope that it would resolve some of the growing tensions in the Gulf, officials said. The U.S. wasn't directly involved in these talks, officials said.

Ultimately, U.S. officials said the aim was to prevent any further attacks against Saudi Arabia, including those by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen. The officials believe that Iran had an incentive to join the talks because it wants to ease the growing political and economic pressure at home, and hopes that any diplomatic breakthroughs with its neighbors might help.

U.S. officials said the next two months, until the official reopening of the embassies, would be critical in gauging how serious Tehran is in honoring the agreement.

"This is not a regime that typically does honor its word, so we hope that they do," White House National Security Council Strategic Coordinator John Kirby told reporters Friday. "We'd like to see this war in Yemen end, and that this arrangement that they have, might help lead us to that outcome."

Mr. Kirby added: "This is not about China. We support any effort to de-escalate tensions in the region. We think that's in our interests, and it's something that we worked on through our own effective combination of deterrence and diplomacy."

China's role in the talks marks a watershed moment for Beijing's ambitions in the region. Along with Russia's intervention in the Syrian civil war, China's diplomacy is another sign of the U.S.'s waning influence.

Tehran had been increasingly worried Beijing's growing ties with Saudi Arabia could leave it further isolated. Mr. Xi's visit to Saudi Arabia in December triggered a backlash in Iran after Beijing joined an Arab statement calling on Tehran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency over its nuclear program." [1]

 

 China's efforts are understandable. As the US diligently balances one regional power against another (Muslims in Saudi Arabia against Muslims in Iran, Slavs in Ukraine against Slavs in Russia), China uses its weight on the international stage to upset this balancing. These are direct attempts to harm the United States. The most interesting thing is how this Chinese policy will manifest itself closer to China's home - in Asia.

 

1. Saudis, Iran Restore Relations With Accord Brokered by China
Kalin, Stephen; Faucon, Benoit; Salama, Vivian; Cloud, David S.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 11 Mar 2023: A.1.