SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Saudi Arabia wants more substantive talks with Iran but that Tehran is so far biding its time and playing “games” in the discussions, Saudi envoy to the U.N. said.
Saudi Arabia and Iran held direct talks this year at a time global powers are trying to save a nuclear pack with Tehran.
Saudi Arabia’s U.N. envoy Abdallah Al-Mouallimi said no major results had been achieved.
“We would like to push these discussions towards substantive issues that involve the behavior of the Iranian government in the region,” Mouallimi said in an interview with Saudi Arabi newspaper Arab News published on Monday.
“But as long as the Iranians continue to play games with these talks, they are not going to go anywhere,” he added.
“The Iranians take a long-term attitude towards these talks. We are not interested in talks for the sake of talks.”
The kingdom, which cut ties with Tehran in 2016, has described the talks as cordial but exploratory, while an Iranian official in October said they had gone a “good distance”, according to Reuters.
Tensions between the two foes spiked in 2019 after an assault on Saudi oil plants that Riyadh blamed on Iran, a charge Tehran denies, and continue to simmer over Yemen where a Saudi-led coalition is battling the Iran-aligned Houthi group.
