The foreign ministers of bitter Middle Eastern rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia held formal talks for the first time since 2016.
A video shows Hossein Amir Abdullahian and Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud being encouraged to shake hands by their Chinese counterpart in Beijing.
They discussed reopening diplomatic missions and resuming flights within two months, a joint statement said.
The states agreed to restore ties in a deal brokered by China last month.
It was seen as a challenge to China’s growing influence in the Middle East and the US’s dominant role in the region.
China has close diplomatic and economic relations with both Saudi Arabia and Iran, while relations between the US and Saudi Arabia have been strained in recent years, and the US has had no diplomatic relations with Iran for four decades.
Mr Amir Abdullah and Prince Faisal stressed the importance of implementing the agreement to restore relations that would “expand areas of mutual trust and cooperation and help build security, stability and prosperity”.
He also said that they have discussed the resumption of bilateral visits. An Iranian official said earlier this month that President Ibrahim Raisi had accepted an invitation from King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to visit Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran seven years ago after a mob attacked its embassy in Tehran. This happened after Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shia cleric. Since then, the tension between them has been on the rise.
The rapprochement between two of the Middle East’s great rivals is an unusual turn of events, as well as a diplomatic victory for China.
Eight years after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman led his country to war across the border in Yemen in hopes of crushing the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, the reality is emerging in Riyadh.
The Saudi leadership has reluctantly come to accept two inescapable truths.
The first is that Iran is now a formidable military power with a large stockpile of missiles and proxy militias throughout the region, a power that Saudi Arabia and its allies are unlikely to defeat.
Second, despite the nominal strategic alliance between the two countries, Riyadh can no longer trust Washington.
The Saudis favored President Donald Trump, who made his first foreign presidential visit to Riyadh in 2017. But he trusted President Barack Obama before that, when he arrived in Iran and announced a “pivot in the Pacific.”
Today, relations with Joe Biden’s White House are strained as the Saudis cut oil production, raising prices at the pumps despite American pleas.
So the Saudi-Iran deal is the latest sign that Riyadh is forging its own path, forging new alliances, even if it’s with countries the United States sees as strategic threats.
Saudi Arabia, which sees itself as a Sunni Muslim power, and Iran, the largest Shiite Muslim country, have been locked in a struggle for regional dominance for decades.
But in recent years, their rivalry has been fueled by proxy wars across the Middle East.
In Yemen, Saudi Arabia has been supporting pro-government forces in the war against the Houthi rebel movement since 2015. Iran has denied that it is smuggling weapons to the Houthis, who have launched missile and drone attacks on Saudi cities and oil infrastructure.
Saudi Arabia has also accused Iran of meddling in Lebanon and Iraq, where Iranian-backed Shiite militias have amassed vast military and political influence. attacks on cargo and oil tankers in the Gulf; And in 2019, they are behind the missile and drone attacks on major Saudi oil facilities. Iran has denied being behind the attacks on ships and oil facilities.
The kingdom also opposed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and supported then-President Trump’s decision to abandon it and reimpose economic sanctions five years ago. Indirect negotiations between the Biden administration and Iran to restore the deal have been stalled for a year.
