TEHRAN – A Russian official has hailed the Iran-Saudi deal to restore diplomatic ties, saying the deal would create a new atmosphere in the West Asia region. 

The official, Alexander Yakovenko, who is the rector of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, made the remarks during a visit to Damascus, where he met with Buthaina Shaban, an advisor to Syrian President Bashar Assad. 

What is happening in the Arab world is very important, and the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement and the imminent end of the war in Yemen will undoubtedly contribute to creating a new regional reality in which the countries of the region play a vital role, the Russian official said.

 Yakovenko clarified the significant steps taken by Russia, China, Brazil and the BRICS countries collectively to align the new economy with the decline of dependence on the Western economy, and to try to build an economic system that gradually abandons the dollar and proposes methods and currencies that are agreed upon as alternatives, the official Syrian SANA news agency reported.
 
There is no doubt that the sanctions imposed by the West on several countries in the world without any right, and the freezing of funds deposited with them, have motivated many countries to find safer and more stable alternatives for their economies and the global market as well, he said.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have recently agreed to resume diplomatic relations in a deal brokered by China. The foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia have met in Beijing to follow up on the deal. The two countries are now exchanging delegations to pave the way for reopening embassies. 

A senior Iranian diplomat has said that Iran and Saudi Arabia will reopen their embassies before the end of the two-month period agreed upon in their recent agreement.

Alireza Enayati, the head of the Persian Gulf Bureau at the Iranian Foreign Ministry, has said that according to the deal reached between Iran and Saudi Arabia in China, the embassies of the two countries will be reopened before May 9. The deal also stipulated that the foreign ministers of the two countries would hold a meeting for the first time in years.

“This issue took place within a month, and the foreign ministries of the two countries met in Beijing, and from that date, the official declaration of relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Saudi Arabia began, and after that, the technical delegations met each other,” Enayati said in an interview with Iran’s official news agency IRNA published on Monday.

He also pointed out that a new meeting of foreign ministers is on the agenda of Iran and Saudi Arabia, and “we hope that these meetings will take place in the near future.”

According to Enayati, Tehran and Riyadh have yet to name ambassadors.