The Iranian president was invited to Saudi Arabia

Received an invitation Ibrahim Raisi Iranian President to Riyadh Salman bin Abdulaziz From the Saudi monarch after the two regional rivals agreed to mend relations and mutually reopen embassies.

Mohamed JamsidiThe deputy chief of the Iranian president’s office said on his Twitter page on Sunday that Raisi welcomed the invitation and accepted it. As he wrote, at the meeting in Riyadh, the two leaders will discuss, among other things, prospects for strengthening economic and regional cooperation.

The date of the visit has not been announced yet.

The Shiite-majority Islamic Republic and the Sunni kingdom decided in March this year to restore diplomatic relations after seven years of hostility. Iran and Saudi Arabia are rivals for political and military influence in the region.

As one of the first steps of rapprochement brought about by the Chinese mediation, a meeting between the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Iran is expected to take place soon. According to the agreement, the two sides will restore diplomatic relations and reopen embassies in the next two months.

Diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia were severed after extremists attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran in 2016. After that, Riyadh expelled the Iranian embassy staff and Iranian diplomats in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation from Saudi Arabia. The two countries support the conflicting parties in the region, such as the Yemeni and Syrian civil wars.

(MTI)