TEHRAN- The director general of the Regional Affairs Department of the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs met on Tuesday with Ali Bagheri Kani, the Iranian deputy foreign minister for political affairs.

Vebjorn Dysvik and the accompanying delegation had traveled to Tehran for consultations on arranging a meeting between the foreign ministers of Norway and Iran.

The two sides also discussed issues of mutual interest as well as the most significant domestic and international developments, such as Afghanistan and Palestine.

Iranian, Norwegian diplomats discuss ways to achieve peace in Yemen

In another meeting on Monday, Dysvik also met with Ali Asghar Khaji, the senior assistant to Iranian foreign minister for special political affairs, to discuss Yemeni peace negotiations.

They discussed the prospects for peace in Yemen as well as the most recent developments in the negotiations between Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni Ansarullah movement.

Khaji deemed the recent talks between Saudi Arabia and Ansarullah to be on the right track and expressed optimism that the parties would continue to communicate and develop a plan to settle the issue as soon as possible.

The senior Iranian diplomat further viewed Ansarullah’s demands as reasonable that are based on the humanitarian needs of the Yemeni people, including establishing a nationwide ceasefire, lifting the economic blockade on the Yemeni people, and finding a solution to paying government employees’ salaries.

The Norwegian diplomat, for his part, outlined Oslo’s initiatives to help resolve Yemen’s humanitarian issues and emphasized the necessity of achieving a consensus via the parties’ flexibility for the sake of the Yemeni people.

He said that he hoped the talks between Saudi Arabia and Ansarullah will resume in order to turn the short-term truce into a permanent agreement.

Eelier, the second joint consular commission of Iran and Norway was held with the consular directors-general of the two countries presiding over the session. The meeting was held after a seven-year hiatus.

At the meeting that was held in a constructive atmosphere and one of understanding, important consular issues between Iran and Norway including visa issuance, looking into the problems of students, academic cooperation, transit drivers, illegal refugees and their return to the country and also joint cooperation in humanitarian activities as well as judicial cooperation were discussed, according to the Iranian foreign ministry.

The meeting came against a backdrop of accelerated de-escalation between Iran and Europe. In recent months, Iran released European prisoners and Belgium released Iranian diplomat Assadullah Assadi.

Bernard Phelan, a French-Irish citizen who was detained and sentenced to 6.5 years in jail for transmitting security intelligence during the height of the upheaval in Iran last year, has been released on humanitarian grounds. Phelan, a Paris-based travel consultant, was detained in October and was held in a prison in Mashhad, northeastern Iran, and was released in May.

Reportedly, Iranian and European officials have also met recently in the Qatari capital Doha to discuss a number of issues of mutual interest.