Riyadh Afraid to Start Talks with Tehran: Analyst

Morteza Mousavi Khalkhali, an expert on Arab world issues, has weighed in on the reasons why Tehran and Riyadh have not started talks yet. In an interview with the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA), the analyst elaborated on the role of regional challenges in that regard.

“Unfortunately, the period of crisis in our relations with Saudi Arabia has become too long, and if this tension and a lack of relationship between the two key regional countries continues, it will definitely be detrimental to Riyadh because Saudi Arabia is a dependent country which has no democracy, parties, free newspapers and a parliament,” said the analyst.

“Moreover, Saudi Arabia has not taken a lesson from history and has got involved in a war which even Gamal Abdel Nasser, the then leader of one of the most powerful countries in the Middle East, could not win some 20 years ago,” he added.

“Egypt, which had stepped into this arena in a bid to bring about reforms in Yemen, pulled out of it after a year after 30 thousand Egyptian soldiers were killed,” added the commentator.

He said Saudi Arabia has not taken a lesson from the past and has inflicted a lot of damage on impoverished Yemen during this conflict which has taken almost 5 years.

“Riyadh has killed many innocent people and destroyed vital centres,” he said.

Still, he added, Saudi Arabia has not officially announced its readiness to help establish peace and official declare an end to the war.

“Saudi Arabia is facing problems in Yemen; still, it created the ISIS in Iraq in order to topple the Baghdad government, but Iran came to Iraq’s help,” the commentator noted.

“If Iran hadn’t helped Iraq, the Iraqi government would have been ousted. However, both the ISIS was destroyed in this country and Saudi Arabia pulled out of Iraq,” said the analyst.

He said Riyadh even failed in Syria.

“And now, it is Lebanon’s turn as Saudi Arabia seeks to secure its interests there,” he added.

“Also, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates made every effort to get Iran involved in a war with the United States, but to no avail,” said the commentator.

“We see that Saudi Arabia has involved itself in proxy wars at the regional and international levels and has taken many countries on board, but failed to achieve any results,” he said.

“Saudi Arabia was under pressure on all sides, and is afraid to enter into talks with Iran lest it will be put in position of weakness,” the analyst noted.

“Iran has, over the past years, announced its readiness, time and again, for talks with Saudi Arabia to ease tensions with Riyadh, but Riyadh is in a position of weakness and is not prepared to ease tensions,” he said.

“Saudi Arabia is looking for a ray of hope in or der to score a point and victory in the region, so that it will not be seen as a weak country when talking to Iran,” the analyst noted.

“On the other hand, Saudi Arabia is proud of being supported by the United States and is not in a hurry to establish friendship with Iran and restore cordial ties,” he added.

“The Al-Saud dynasty has ruled this vast territory for 80 years; the current group is the most incompetent of all,” he said.

“Today, the Saudi crown prince has lost enough credibility for being notorious, committing a crime and ordering the murder of Khashoggi,” he said.

“Meantime, Pakistan is one of the regional countries that have gone into action after the mediation of Oman, Iraq, Japan and other countries because it is harmed by Iranian-Saudi divisions,” he said.