Imran Khan in Tehran on mission to ‘facilitate’ Iran-Saudi talks

TEHRAN: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan visited Iran on Sunday on a mission to act as a “facilitator” between Tehran and Riyadh and try to defuse rising tensions in the Gulf.

Khan landed in Tehran around midday and met with President Hassan Rouhani at the presidential palace.

He was also scheduled to hold talks with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, before travelling to Riyadh on Tuesday.

“The reason for this trip is that we do not want a conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran,” Khan told reporters as he stood alongside Rouhani.

“Whatever it takes we must never allow this conflict to take place, because we know, Mr President, that there is a vested interest that wants this to take place,” he told Rouhani.

Noting that it was a “complex” issue that can be resolved through talks, Khan warned that any conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia would “cause poverty in the world”.

Pakistan has strong relations with Saudi Arabia, with more than 2.5 million of its nationals living and working in the kingdom, but it also maintains good relations with Iran and represents Tehran’s consular interests in the United States.

This is Khan’s second visit this year to Iran, which shares a border of about 1,000km with Pakistan.

Emphasising that the visits to Tehran and Riyadh were Pakistan’s “initiative”, Khan said he was also approached by US President Donald Trump to “facilitate some sort of dialogue between Iran and the United States”.

Tehran and Washington have been at loggerheads since the US withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in May last year and reimposed sanctions on the Islamic republic.

Rouhani repeated Iran’s official line that the United States must return to the deal and lift sanctions before any talks can take place.

“Any goodwill gesture and good words will be reciprocated with a goodwill gesture and good words,” he said.

Tanker attacks

Tehran says an Iranian-flagged Sabiti tanker was hit by two separate explosions off the Saudi port of Jeddah, making it the first Iranian vessel targeted since a spate of attacks in the Gulf that Washington has blamed on Tehran. Saudi Arabia said it had no involvement in Friday’s attack on an Iranian oil tanker in the Red Sea that caused a spike of more than 2 per cent in crude prices.

“We don’t engage in such behaviour,” Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al Jubeir said in Riyadh on Sunday.

There has been a series of still-unexplained attacks on shipping in and around the vital seaway involving Iran and Western powers, as well as drone attacks on Saudi oil installations.

Washington has accused Tehran of attacking the vessels with mines and of being behind the drone assault, something it strongly denies.

Khan met both Rouhani and Trump at the United Nations General Assembly last month, shortly after he visited Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia.

The Pakistan premier said he was “very encouraged” by talking to Rouhani and will go to Saudi Arabia “in a very positive frame of mind”, hoping the two countries can “iron out their differences.”