


This is huge in the geopolitical world. China operated as a broker in the structurally unstable relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
It will be intensely interesting to see how Israel positions itself w/ this new dynamic.
BEIRUT — Saudi Arabia and Iran announced an agreement in China on Friday to resume relations more than seven years after severing ties, a major breakthrough in a bitter rivalry that has long divided the Middle East.
The agreement was a result of talks in Beijing that began Monday as part of an initiative by Chinese President Xi Jinping aimed at “developing good neighborly relations” between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the three countries said in a joint statement. The agreement, which was signed by top Iranian security official Ali Shamkhani and Saudi national security adviser Musaed bin Mohammed al-Aiban, said embassies would be reopened within two months.
Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran in 2016 after the Saudi Embassy in Tehran was attacked and burned by Iranian protesters, angered by the kingdom’s execution of prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqr al-Nimr. The cleric had emerged as a leading figure in protests in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, a Shiite-majority region in the Sunni-majority nation.
[…] On Friday, John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said the United States welcomed the agreement but noted that Washington was not “directly involved.”
Kirby said it was too early to tell whether the deal would hold. “It really does remain to be seen whether the Iranians are going to honor their side,” he said. “This is not a regime that typically does honor its word. So we hope that they do. We’d like to see this war in Yemen end.”
Yemen has enjoyed a rare reprieve from fighting since April, when a truce sponsored by the United Nations went into effect. (more)
With the western alliance nations destroying their economies while simultaneously meddling around in European cultural and political affairs, the dynamic of the BRICS economic alliance also opens up within a Saudi-Iran peace process. Economics is the oil that lubricates against geopolitical friction.
China is gaining influence, and Russia is gaining breathing room from WEF sanctions.
This will be very interesting to keep watching.