A News Aggregator That Covers The World's Major Wars And Conflicts. Military, Political, And Intelligence News Are Also Covered. Occasionally We Will Have Our Own Opinions Or Observations To Make.
Showing posts with label iran saudi arabia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iran saudi arabia. Show all posts
Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman meets with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia August 18, 2023. Iran's Foreign Ministry/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
DUBAI (Reuters) -Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on Friday in the highest-level talks since the countries reconciled in March after years of bitter rivalry that destabilised the region.
The unscheduled meeting in Jeddah comes a day after Amirabdollahian arrived in the kingdom and declared ties between the countries were "on the right track" following talks with his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan.
To get a sense of the tectonic shifts taking place in the region, all one has to do is watch this video of a Saudi military officer welcoming an Iranian official in Saudi Arabia after the Saudi navy evacuated more than 60 Iranian citizens from Sudan.
The detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran has the potential to reshape relations across a region characterised by turbulence for decades [File: China Daily via Reuters]
Planned meeting comes after Saudi Arabia and Iran signed a landmark deal to restore ties after seven years of estrangement.
Iran and Saudi Arabia’s top diplomats have agreed to meet before the end of the holy month of Ramadan to implement a landmark bilateral reconciliation deal that was brokered by China.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, made the decision after holding their second phone call in less than a week, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Monday.
The two traditional rivals agreed to normalize relations in a March 10 deal brokered by China. Iran's international outreach to its regional rival comes amid major domestic unrest.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Sunday "welcomed" an invitation from Saudia Arabia's King Salman to visit the country, an Iranian official said.
"In a letter to President Raisi... the King of Saudi Arabia welcomed the deal between the two brotherly countries, [and] invited him to Riyadh," Mohammad Jamshidi, the Iranian president's deputy chief of staff for political affairs, wrote on Twitter.
WNU Editor: Before the announcement of Iran's President accepting an invitation to go to Saudi Arabia, Iran announced that the ministers of both countries are going to meet in another country to further talks and improve relations .... Iran proposes locations to Saudi Arabia for ministerial talks (Reuters).
The deal, which will see the two countries reopen embassies in each other’s capitals, was sealed during a meeting in China and announced Friday in a joint communique.
Archrivals Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed Friday to restore diplomatic relations, a dramatic breakthrough brokered by China after years of soaring tensions between the regional rivals.
The deal, which will see the two countries reopen embassies in each other’s capitals, was sealed during a meeting in China — a boost to Beijing’s efforts to rival the United States as a broker on the global stage.
The agreement also may put a dampener Israel's ongoing efforts to normalize relations with its Arab neighbors.
The talks were held because of a “shared desire to resolve the disagreements between them through dialogue and diplomacy, and in light of their brotherly ties,” according to a joint communique from Tehran, Riyadh and Beijing that was published by the Saudi Press Agency, the country’s official news agency.
The agreement followed intensive negotiations between Ali Shamkhani, a close adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni, and Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State Musaad bin Mohammed Al-Aiban, according to the statement.
It added that the foreign ministers from both countries would “meet to implement this, arrange for the return of their ambassadors, and discuss means of enhancing bilateral relations.”
WNU Editor: There is one more big winner in Iran and Saudi Arabia restoring ties that is becoming known. It is Russia.
Russia, because of its close ties to Iran, was apparently instrumental in nudging Iran to work with China to negotiate a rapprochement with Saudi Arabia.
Another big winner will be BRICS. Both Saudi Arabia and Iran want to be formal members of BRICS. This will now make it possible.
The US is another big loser. It isolates the US from the Middle East, undermines Iran sanctions, and further accelerates the move to an alternative reserve currency via through BRICS.
* Regional foes Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to resume diplomatic relations and reopen embassies in each other’s countries, both governments announced.
* The development followed China-led negotiations in Beijing.
* In addition to resuming diplomatic relations and reopening their embassies and missions in each other’s countries, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to affirm “the respect for the sovereignty of states and the non-interference in internal affairs of states.”
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Long-time regional foes Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to resume diplomatic relations and reopen embassies in each other’s countries following China-led negotiations in Beijing, both governments announced via their respective state media agencies.
“As a result of the talks, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to resume diplomatic relations and re-open embassies ... within two months,” Iran’s news agency IRNA reported Friday.
Saudi Arabia’s state Saudi Press Agency confirmed the announcement in its own statement.
The Saudi statement profusely thanked Beijing for its leadership in the talks.
WNU Editor: When it comes to international news, especially focused on diplomacy, I am rarely surprised. I was surprised when I read of this successful Chinese mediation effort to repair ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Both countries still have a long way to go to repair ties and lower tensions, but this is a huge first step to repair those ties. As for China. This is a huge diplomatic win, and a recognition that they are now major players when it comes to international diplomacy.
Numerous countries are now praising this rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. But it is telling that the US and other Western governments have so far been silent.
Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud attends a news conference at the Arab Gulf Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, December 9, 2022. REUTERS/Ahmed Yosri
DUBAI (Reuters) -Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said on Sunday that Iran's Gulf Arab neighbours would act to shore up their security if Tehran were to obtain nuclear weapons.
Indirect U.S.-Iranian talks to salvage a 2015 nuclear pact between global powers and Iran, which Washington exited in 2018, stalled in September.
The U.N. nuclear chief has voiced concern over a recent announcement by Tehran that it was boosting enrichment capacity.
"If Iran gets an operational nuclear weapon, all bets are off," Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said in an on-stage interview at the World Policy Conference in Abu Dhabi when asked about such a scenario.
"We are in a very dangerous space in the region...you can expect that regional states will certainly look towards how they can ensure their own security."
in the case of combined drone, cruise and ballistic missile attacks. Therefore, in a number of cases it came to attempts to fight off drones by firing machine guns, as we are now seeing in Ukraine.
The Iranian military displays missles at Tehran’s Baharestan square to commemorate the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war during “sacred defense week” September 25, 2003. (Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters)
Planned strikes are believed to be targeting Saudi Arabia and Iraq
The United States and Saudi Arabia are on high alert after Saudi intelligence shared with the U.S. indicated that Iran is expected to carry out an attack on targets in Saudi Arabia, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Officials from both countries reportedly told the Journal about the concern over coming attacks. Saudi officials said that in addition to Saudi Arabia, Iran is also looking to strike Erbil, Iraq, where U.S. troops are located.
The planned attacks are said to be intended as a distraction from protests taking place in Iran against the Islamic nation's leadership.
WNU Editor: I follow Iran very closely. I have seen no uptick in military positioning or movement. I would be shocked if Iran does launch strikes against Saudi Arabia.
All that I can say is let us pray that such a conflict does not happen. A major war in the Middle East will mean +$200 for a barrel of oil coupled with widespread shortages and rationing. A collapse in supply chains and the global economy. A severe recession, or more likely a severe depression with massive unemployment and social unrest.
Saudi Arabia And U.S. On High Alert After Intelligence Warning Of Imminent Iranian Attack
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi did not mention Saudi Arabia during a Sunday press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, but further direct talks between Tehran and Riyadh look likely [President's Website/WANA/Handout via Reuters]
The last direct talks between Riyadh and Tehran were held in April, as the two sides mull over a rapprochement.
Tehran, Iran – Iran’s foreign ministry says Saudi Arabia is ready to hold more direct bilateral talks, one day after the Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi travelled to Tehran to mediate between the two regional rivals.
Foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters during a press conference on Monday that Riyadh is ready to “continue negotiations in Baghdad on a diplomatic level” without commenting on a possible date.
Iraq’s foreign minister Fuad Hussein, seen here with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Tehran in December, had said his country would host talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Photograph: Iranian Foreign Ministry/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
A day after Iraq said it would host a fresh round of talks between the regional rivals, Iran announced they would not go ahead
Iran has suspended the latest round of talks with regional rival. Saudi Arabia, a website affiliated with Iran’s top security body has reported.
Iraq’s foreign ministry had announced on Saturday that it would host the talks on Wednesday. The Iraqi foreign minister, Fuad Hussein, revealed the development during remarks at a diplomatic forum in Antalya on Turkey’s southern coast cited by local media.
A foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed the comments to Reuters.
But a day later the website Nour news reported that “Iran has unilaterally suspended talks with Saudi Arabia”, without providing a reason. It said no specific date had been scheduled for a new round of talks.
In a highly unexpected and unusual development, and coming off a possible diplomatic breakthrough amid recent talks aimed at opening up relations, Iranian diplomats arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia this weekend for the first time in a half-decade.
The two countries haven't had diplomatic relations since 2016, when Iranian protesters attacked the Saudi Embassy in Tehran following the kingdom's execution of a popular Shia cleric. They are reportedly preparing to reopen embassies.
The Saudis and Iranians have further been waging fierce proxy wars against the other in places like Syria and Yemen over a period of years.
Shia Iran has long funded and sent weapons primarily to Hezbollah, as well as Yemen's Houthi rebels, while the Saudis have funded Sunni jihadists including ISIS.
The two sides have also long vied for influence in Lebanon's politics, with Washington consistently backing the Saudis.
Backchannel talks that began in April are now an open secret and poised to produce a symbolic breakthrough in the coming days
Iran and Saudi Arabia are inching towards a rapprochement that, if achieved, would profoundly shift the region’s dynamics, diplomacy and stability. Officials from both sides have recently hailed backchannel talks held first in Iraq and now in Oman as “constructive.”
In May, Iraqi President Barham Salih confirmed his country had been hosting quiet talks between the two often bitter rivals. The talks, which started in April, have recently been attended by high-profile delegates, including Saudi chief of General Intelligence Directorate Khalid al-Humaidan and Iranian Deputy Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Saeed Iravani.
WNU Editor: There are still many differences between the two regional powers. The war in Yemen. Iran's nuclear ambitions. The Syrian war. Just to name a few.
Saudi soldiers stand in line at an airfield where Saudi military cargo planes land to deliver aid in Marib, Yemen January 26, 2018. Picture taken January 26, 2018. REUTERS/Faisal Al Nasser
Attack on Saudi oilfields had all the hallmarks of an Iranian strike but Riyadh has good cause to keep its powder dry
Tensions are rising again in the Middle East after an explosives-laden drone and ballistic missile fired by the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen targeted Saudi Aramco facilities at the Saudi port of Ras Tanura and in the city of Dhahran early on March 7.
The attacks on the world’s largest petroleum company pushed up crude oil prices, now hovering around US$70 a barrel, to levels not seen since 2018.
The spike in prices and potential for tit-for-tat attacks has cast a new cloud over hopes that the global economy is poised to emerge from the damage wrought by the global pandemic.
Prince Faisal bin Farhan has been sworn in as Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs during an oath-taking ceremony in front of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. (SPA)
* Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud tells CNBC that President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign set the groundwork for a new agreement with Iran.
* Al-Saud says Saudi Arabia should be a “partner” to the United States in any discussions with Iran moving forward.
* Saudi Arabia holds a virtual leaders meeting this weekend as part of their G-20 presidency.
Saudi Arabia says it should be a part of any potential negotiations between the incoming U.S. administration and Iran on a new nuclear deal, Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud told CNBC.
Saudi Arabia seeks to partner with the U.S. administration on a potential new agreement, which would not only limit Iran’s nuclear activities but also seek to address its “regional malign activity,” Al-Saud told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble on Saturday.
Such an accord could be labeled the “JCPOA++,” he added.
The JCPOA, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, is a 2015 agreement between Iran and world powers which limited the country’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. The original agreement was signed by the five permanent members of the United Nations’ Security Council — China, France, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S., plus Germany.
Riyadh says it busted a ‘terror cell’ that had received training from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, seizing weapons, explosives and arresting 10 people.
Saudi Arabia says it has taken down a “terrorist cell” that had received training from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, arresting 10 people and seizing weapons and explosives, while Tehran says the allegation is a “complete fabrication”.
A Saudi spokesman for the presidency of state security said in a statement published on the state-run Saudi Press Agency on Monday that three of those arrested had been trained in Iran while the rest were “linked to the cell in various roles”.
Cell members “received military and field training, including on how to make explosives, inside Revolutionary Guards sites in Iran” for several weeks in late 2017, he said.
The statement said weapons and explosives were confiscated at two locations, a house and a farm, in the Gulf Arab state, which is the world’s largest oil exporter and a key ally of the United States.
Saudi Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Turki Al-Malik displays the remains of the missiles that the Saudi government says were used to attack an Aramco oil facility, during a news conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Sept. 18, 2019. Photo by REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says in a report that the drones and cruise missiles that struck Saudi Arabia’s oil refineries and an international airport last year came from Iran.
The secretary general said UN experts inspected weapons debris collected at the sites of the September 2019 attack on Aramco’s Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities, as well as the Houthi-claimed June and August strikes at Abha International Airport and a strike on the Afif oil facility in May.
“The Secretariat assesses that the cruise missiles and/or parts thereof used in the four attacks are of Iranian origin,” Guterres said in a document first reported by Reuters on Thursday.
Ambassador Iraj Masjedi said Qassem Soleimani, killed at Baghdad airport by a US air strike last month, was carrying a message setting out Iran's position on possible rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, the Iraqi state news agency reported [File: Haidar Mohammed Ali/AFP]
Iran wants to resolve differences with its Gulf foes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates “as quickly as possible”, Tehran’s ambassador to Iraq said in remarks published on Tuesday.
Ambassador Iraj Masjedi said top commander Qassem Soleimani, killed at Baghdad airport by a US drone strike last month, was carrying a message setting out Iran’s position on possible rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, the Iraqi state news agency reported.
“Tehran welcomes Iraq’s role in trying to solve differences between Iran and Saudi,” Masjedi was quoted as saying, referring to recent Iraq efforts to mediate between the regional rivals, expressing Iran’s “wish to resolve differences and challenges with Saudi and the UAE as quickly as possible.”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said new evidence and analysis of weapons debris recovered from an attack on Saudi oil facilities on Sept. 14 indicates the strike likely came from the north, reinforcing its earlier assessment that Iran was behind the offensive.
In an interim report of its investigation - seen by Reuters ahead of a presentation on Thursday to the United Nations Security Council - Washington assessed that before hitting its targets, one of the drones traversed a location approximately 200 km (124 miles) to the northwest of the attack site.
“This, in combination with the assessed 900 kilometer maximum range of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), indicates with high likelihood that the attack originated north of Abqaiq,” the interim report said, referring to the location of one of the Saudi oil facilities that were hit.
It added the United States had identified several similarities between the drones used in the raid and an Iranian designed and produced unmanned aircraft known as the IRN-05 UAV.
* Foreign Minister Abdel al-Jubeir said: 'We didn't engage in such behaviour at all'
* Iran said the oil tanker was hit on Friday but denied reports it was from Saudi
* Sabiti oil tank was struck by two missiles 60 miles from the port of Jeddah
A Saudi minister has denied that his country was behind a suspected missile strike against an Iranian-owned oil tanker in the Red Sea.
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Abdel al-Jubeir said: 'We did not engage in such behaviour at all.
'This is not how we operate and that's not how we did it in the past.
'The story is still not complete. So let's wait and find out what happened before we jump to conclusions.'
I have been involved in numerous computer science projects since the 1980s, as well as developing numerous web projects since 1996.
These blogs are a summation of all the information that I read and catalog pertaining to the subjects that interest me.
