The Iranian flag waves in front of the IAEA headquarters before the beginning of a board of governors meeting, in Vienna, Austria, March 1, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Lisi Niesner

i24 News – Iran and Saudi Arabia are ready to move reconciliation talks to a higher level, more than a year after they began and six years after the two rivals severed relations, Iran’s foreign minister said.

Since April last year, Iraq hosted five rounds of talks between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shiite-majority Iran, which support opposing sides in various conflicts around the region.

“Progress has been made in these negotiations,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in an interview with Iran’s state broadcaster on Thursday.

He added that last week Iran received a message from Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, who said “the Saudi side is ready to move the talks to the political and public level.”

Iran’s top diplomat noted that previous rounds were mainly at the level of security officials.

“We announced our readiness for the talks to enter the political stage,” said Hussein.

In 2016, Iranian protesters attacked Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran after the kingdom executed Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Riyadh responded by cutting ties with Tehran.

Amir-Abdollahian said he hoped that the negotiations with Riyadh would lead to “normal diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Officials in Tehran previously said that holding talks on a political level could yield better and faster results.

After the last round of negotiations in April, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi said he believed that “reconciliation is near” between Riyadh and Tehran, a further reflection of shifting political alignments across the region.