Okaz/Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH — Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reaffirmed that Iran and Saudi Arabia are two great nations. “The restoration of ties between the two countries would change the equations and bring order to the region,” he said during an interview with the official Syrian News Agency (SANA) on the occasion of his landmark visit to Syria.

While hailing the normalization of bilateral ties between the two countries, the Iranian president asserted: “We reject and do neither accept that Saudi Arabia is considered as our enemy, nor that we will ever be hostile to the Kingdom.”

Raisi said during his interview that Iran was playing a mediating role in Russian-facilitated talks aimed to normalize ties between Syria and Turkey. He emphasized that Iran plays an important role in the region and the world. “We are ready to play such a role to bring closer the views between these two Muslim countries, and solve their internal problems through dialogue and negotiations between them. We touched on this topics during the Astana meeting as well as during the meetings of foreign ministers,” he added.

Raisi concluded his two-day official visit to Damascus on Friday. During the first visit by an Iranian president to Syria since 2010, Raisi held wide ranging talks with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al Assad. Raisi described the visit as a turning point in bilateral relations.

It is noteworthy that the Arab League foreign ministers are holding an emergency meeting in Cairo on Sunday to discuss the conflict in Sudan and Syria’s readmission to the bloc, after it was suspended in 2011.