The head of the Strategic Committee for Iranian Foreign Relations, Kamal Kharrazi, said Iran considers Saudi Arabia “a major country in the region and influential in the Islamic world.”
Kharrazi’s remarks came during his participation in a political seminar, entitled “The Iranian Foreign Policy”, organized by the Diplomatic Institute at the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran considers the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to be a large country in the region and influential in the Islamic world, and neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia can exclude one another,” the official Syrian news agency, SANA, quoted the Iranian official as saying.
The Strategic Committee for Iranian Foreign Relations reports to the office of the Iranian Supreme Leader, who considers Kharrazi one of his most prominent advisers in diplomatic and international affairs.
Kharrazi - a former Iranian foreign minister in the government of ex-reformist President Mohammad Khatami - expressed optimism about the quadripartite meeting between Russia, Iran, Türkiye and Syria.
“We are very optimistic that there will be a breakthrough in the Syrian-Turkish relations through these meetings. Naturally, we will take into consideration the Syrian interests as a brotherly country,” he said.
The seminar, which was held at Al-Assad National Library in the Umayyad Square in Damascus, was attended by a number of ambassadors and political, cultural and religious figures.
Kharrazi is accompanied by Abbas Araghchi, who is a former deputy foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator for Iran in the previous government.
The Iranian embassy in Damascus stated on Twitter that Kharrazi met with Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad, noting that the purpose of the visit was to “follow up previous meetings to reach strategic conclusions over the relations between the two countries and regional developments, within the framework of the responsibilities of the Strategic Committee for Foreign Relations.”
The Iranian official’s comments follow an announcement by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian on Sunday that he would hold a meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan “in the near future.”
“We proposed 3 locations to hold the meeting,” he said, adding that an agreement was reached to dispatch technical delegations in preparation for the opening of the two embassies.
The Iranian minister also noted that the relationship with Riyadh returned to normal after five rounds of talks in Baghdad.
