Iran says talks with Saudi Arabia are continuing as it seeks a regional security deal without foreign troops
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Tuesday that talks with Saudi Arabia are ongoing, as Tehran pushes for new regional security arrangements agreed by countries in the region themselves, without foreign military involvement.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Tuesday that talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia are ongoing, as Tehran presses for new regional security arrangements that would be agreed by countries in the region themselves, without foreign military involvement. Araghchi made the point in a message on X and in an interview with Al Jazeera, saying Iran bore no hostility towards the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council and valued the positive roles played by Qatar and Oman. His message, reported by Reuters, was the clearest public signal yet that the diplomatic channel opened last week remains active, even as fighting in the wider region continues. The immediate background is a meeting in Tehran last week at which senior officials from Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan met Iranian officials for the first time at that level since August. The meeting was hosted by Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, and was attended by Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman, Pakistan's army chief Asim Munir and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin. Iranian state television described it as the first joint meeting of its kind. Riyadh said that visit was intended to open negotiating channels to prevent a return to military escalation. That language matters because the war that began with United States and Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February has since spread well beyond Iran itself, drawing Saudi Arabia and Yemen into its orbit and putting Gulf shipping and energy infrastructure under strain. Fighting between Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis has intensified in recent weeks. Houthi attacks on the kingdom have escalated as the group has advanced towards the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the narrow passage at the southern end of the Red Sea that lies on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula from the Strait of Hormuz. The Houthis have also attacked Saudi oil facilities and airports, including Riyadh's international airport, disrupting flights and oil exports and drawing Saudi air strikes on Yemen in return. That escalation is the reason a regional security conversation has acquired a new urgency. For Riyadh, the question is how to stop attacks on its territory and its energy exports. For Tehran, the question is whether a settlement can be framed as a regional arrangement rather than a deal imposed from outside. Araghchi's formulation — arrangements reached by the countries of the region, without foreign military involvement — is designed to appeal to both concerns at once, although it leaves open the hardest question of all: what such an arrangement would actually require each side to stop doing. The talks are also running in parallel with a separate, fragile diplomatic track between Iran and the United States. Qatari mediators travelled to Tehran on Monday night for talks on a version of a draft American-Iranian deal that has been under negotiation for eight days, and a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday that the two sides remained far from an agreement on ending the war. Tehran has tied any reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to its own conditions, including an end to the war on all fronts, the lifting of sanctions and an end to the blockade of Iranian ports. Yemen itself remains a central obstacle. The country has been mired in civil war since the Houthis pushed the internationally recognised, Saudi-backed government out of the capital, Sanaa, in 2014. A regional security arrangement that did not address the Houthi campaign against Saudi Arabia, or the Saudi air campaign in Yemen, would be unlikely to hold, and neither side has yet published anything resembling a detailed proposal. There is also a history to overcome. Iran and Saudi Arabia restored diplomatic relations in 2023 after a seven-year break, but trust has remained thin, and the past eight months of war have tested it severely. A meeting in Tehran, and a public statement that talks are continuing, are therefore significant as signals of intent, but they are not yet evidence of agreement. What happens next will be judged by actions rather than statements. One test is whether the Houthi attacks on Saudi targets pause or continue in the coming days. Another is whether the four-way channel that met in Tehran last week produces a further meeting, or a joint statement with concrete commitments. A third is whether progress on the American-Iranian track — where a draft deal is circulating but no breakthrough has been reported — changes the calculations on both sides. For now, the most that can fairly be said is that a regional diplomatic channel exists, that both sides are publicly describing it as ongoing, and that the fighting that makes it necessary has not stopped. Whether it becomes a route to de-escalation, or simply a parallel conversation while the war continues, is still an open question.Advertisement · Google AdSense 728×90 / 320×100
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