A top Iranian diplomat warned Tehran would withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if a so-called snapback mechanism renews the UN sanctions lifted by a 2015 nuclear deal, underscoring Iran's determination to avoid being pressured into ditching its nuclear ambitions.
At the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (COP16) in Riyadh, Iran’s Minister of Agriculture, Gholamreza Nouri, outlined progress made during bilateral talks.
"We laid the groundwork for developing infrastructure in natural resources, the environment, and agriculture between Iran and Saudi Arabia," Nouri said.
His remarks mark a significant development in the rapprochement fostered by the 2023 China-brokered agreement between the two nations.
Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran in 2016 after its embassy in Tehran was stormed during a dispute over Riyadh's execution of a Shiite Muslim cleric.
Tensions escalated further with subsequent conflicts, including missile and drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities and tankers in the Persian Gulf, attributed to Iran-backed Houthi forces, amidst a nearly decade-long war.
Saudi-Iranian relations have improved following the Beijing Agreement, with both countries exploring areas of mutual interest. Yet, trade between the two remains limited. Iranian officials have expressed an ambition to boost bilateral trade to $1 billion annually, a stark contrast to the negligible trade volumes recorded in recent years.
Flights resume amid warming relations
In a further sign of thawing ties, Iran Air resumed flights between Mashhad and Dammam after a nine-year hiatus.
"A deputy from Iran’s embassy, the representative of Iran Air, and representatives from Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation welcomed arriving passengers in Dammam and stressed the need to facilitate the movement of people between the two countries," ISNA said.
While economic and environmental collaboration are key goals, the rekindling of relations is also part of a broader geopolitical calculus, Saudi and its Persian Gulf neighbor, the United Arab Emirates, working on backdoor diplomacy to reduce the military actions of Iran in the region and curtail its allies across the area.
Last week, Bloomberg reported that Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the de facto Saudi ruler, made an offer of increased trade to Iranian officials in recent weeks in the hope of ratcheting down tension with the West.
Despite progress, challenges remain since the rekindled ties between the two countries, including the ongoing Yemeni Houthis' blockade of the Red Sea region since the war in Gaza.
David Ottaway from the Wilson Centre wrote in March that at an emergency summit of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Arab League held in Riyadh on November 12 last year, Saudi Arabia managed to quash Iranian efforts to mobilize military support for Hamas in its war with Israel.
The meeting also managed to stall pressure on the six Arab states that now have diplomatic ties with the Jewish state—Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco—to cut them. After the Gaza war, talks to normalize relations between Saudi and Israel which progressed into the public domain, have also been stalled, a move which will please Tehran.
Iran's former President Ebrahim Raisi and bin Salman (MBS) met during the summit to discuss various possible areas for cooperation, including Saudi investment in Iran’s sanctions-hobbled economy.
It was here that bin Salman allegedly warned Raisi that Iran "would have to rein in the activities of its regional Arab allies and proxies as the quid pro quo for any Saudi financial or economic aid", Ottaway said.
The hardline Islamist-led forces are unlikely beneficiaries of fallout from neighboring conflicts in which key Syrian allies Iran and Russia are sapped and distracted while uneasy neighbor Turkey presses its advantage.
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, accused of war crimes by many Syrians and rights groups, fended off an armed challenge to his rule following Arab Spring democracy protests in 2011 with help from Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters and Russian air power.
But much has changed. The war in Ukraine has preoccupied Russia, Hezbollah limped to a ceasefire with Israel and Iran finds itself on the backfoot in a multifront confrontation with Israel in which it has lost the initiative.
“Over the last year, Hezbollah's forces inside Syria got weaker,” said Ibrahim Al-Assil, a Syrian analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C.
Al-Assil said he was detained by the Syrian secret police in 2011 while taking part in a peaceful protest against Assad in Damascus. He said he was interrogated and tortured for four days at a Syrian military Airport.
“Now even Russia is overwhelmed and busy with the war in Ukraine,” said Al-Assil who founded the Syrian Nonviolence Movement but now predicts deadly upheaval. “The battle is not going to be easy. It's going to be bloody. It's going to be brutal."
The Israeli military has launched dozens of strikes on alleged Iran weapons facilities, smuggling routes and warehouses, curbing the ability of Iran and its allies to help.
The Israeli military announced on Tuesday in a new release that their Air Force conducted a strike in Damascus targeting Hezbollah’s representative to the Syrian military, Salman Nemer Jamaa.
Israel said Jamaa was a Hezbollah operative who was a key figure in enabling weapons smuggling to Lebanon from Syria, in a sign the Jewish state would still pound its Lebanese adversary despite the calm next door.
How far can Iran go to support Assad?
Whether Iran in its cash-strapped and weakened state can afford to come to Assad's rescue remains a key question.
“Is Syria the hill the Iranian regime is willing to die on? I don't think so,” said Hazem Alghabra, who grew up mostly in Syria was a former advisor to the US State Department on Near Eastern Affairs.
The Iranian establishment may understand its weakened position, and Hezbollah forces could be demoralized and underequipped after a punishing 14-month wrestle with the Mideast's top military power.
“The Iranian regime is not going to make big decisions while they're being chased literally by Israel and the United States. The Iranian regime moves when there's an opportunity, a weakness," Alghabra said. "They operate a bit like a virus, whenever they see a weakened immune system, they move in it."
Who are the rebel forces?
Two of the main rebel forces, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Syrian National Army (SNA), are both backed by Ankara.
HTS, known as the Organization for the Liberation of the Levant, is a former Al Qaeda affiliate that pledges to build a state based on Islamic principles.
They are made up Islamist insurgents with Jihadi ideology and former Free Syrian Army factions. They managed to take control of key places in Syria such defense factories in Aleppo, a thermal power station and an air base, according to monitors and eyewitnesses.
All met with little resistance, Greg Brew, an Iran analyst with the Eurasia Group told Iran International.
“Assad's forces have essentially melted away,” said Brew. “Turkey is largely in the driver's seat when it comes to extracting real concessions and real advantage from the situation."
Ankara, while supporting anti-government rebels, may not want Assad to fall, however.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may be using the Islamist insurgents to push a reluctant Assad to acquiesce to a Turkish sphere of influence in Northern Syria, allowing the millions of Syrian refugees in Turkey to return.
Weakened Syrian control over the area may aid Turkey's goal of undermining Kurdish foes further to the East who could also soon find the US military umbrella under which they have operated for years yanked away by an isolationist President Trump.
“Turkey is in a position to extract the greatest gains, the greatest advantage from this sequence of events, even if it hasn't been dictating the events, it does look likely to benefit,” said Brew.
On Tuesday, US airstrikes hit the Eastern Syria in the city of Deir Ezzor. The day before, US backed anti-Assad forces took several villages there from Iran and Iran-backed Assad forces.
While regional power politics may mean Israel and Turkey do not seek Assad's outright ouster, Syrian people trapped in the conflict are at the mercy of the country's clashing internal foes.
Syrian's suffered under the human rights abuses of their president but are likely wary of the Islamist insurgents who have pushed out his forces in recent days.
"People now are focusing on survival," said Al-Assil.
"In case of a snapback reinstatement, one of the options we proposed was withdrawing from the NPT ... we could leave the treaty," deputy foreign minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi was quoted as saying by a parliamentary spokesman on Tuesday.
The remarks followed Takht-Ravanchi's discussions in Geneva with representatives from the UK, France, and Germany — the three European signatories to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
"We did not negotiate in Geneva because we had no text, and there was no text to negotiate on," Takht-Ravanchi said.
The Geneva talks were held in the wake of a controversial resolution passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Board of Governors, which calls for a report on Iran’s nuclear program and its lack of full cooperation with the IAEA by spring 2024.
This resolution could trigger the activation of the snapback mechanism, a provision within the JCPOA that would automatically restore international sanctions on Iran and potentially bring the country under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter.
The resolution, marking the second such action against Iran in two years, has prompted Iran to announce it will activate new and advanced centrifuges as a retaliatory measure.
"Unfortunately, our enemies have made Iran’s nuclear file very complicated and politicized," said Behrooz Kamalvandi, spokesperson for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.
The breakdown in negotiations between Iran and the three European countries reflects broader diplomatic tensions. Efforts to revive the JCPOA, which collapsed after the United States withdrew under President Donald Trump in 2018, have stalled under Presidents Hassan Rouhani and Ebrahim Raisi.
"We have no intention of negotiating with Washington at this time, as there is no basis for such talks," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said recently, adding that Iran would reassess its approach once the new US administration’s policies become clearer.
However, some within President Masoud Pezeshkian’s administration have shown interest in potential talks with the United States, particularly those aligned with the more moderate camp.
Among them, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Pezeshkian's strategic deputy, wrote in an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that Trump should pursue an agreement that benefits both sides.
“The West needs a more constructive approach—one that takes advantage of Iran’s hard-earned confidence, accepts Iran as an integral part of regional stability, and seeks collaborative solutions to shared challenges," he wrote. "Such shared challenges could even prompt Tehran and Washington to engage in conflict management rather than exponential escalation.”
