{"id":28301,"date":"2025-04-17T19:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T19:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/28301\/"},"modified":"2025-04-17T19:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T19:30:10","slug":"saudi-defence-minister-visits-tehran-before-iran-us-talks-united-nations-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/28301\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi defence minister visits Tehran before Iran-US talks | United Nations News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saudi Arabia\u2019s Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman has met several Iranian officials before a second round of talks<\/a> between Washington and Tehran over Iran\u2019s nuclear programme.<\/p>\n

Prince Khalid said he conveyed a message from Saudi Arabia\u2019s King Salman to Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during Thursday\u2019s meeting in Tehran.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe discussed our bilateral relations and topics of mutual interest,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur belief is that the relationship between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Saudi Arabia is beneficial for both countries,\u201d Iranian state media cited Khamenei as saying in the meeting on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Prince Khalid also met President Masoud Pezeshkian and Iran\u2019s armed forces chief of staff, Mohammad Bagheri.<\/p>\n

\u201cTies between the Saudi and Iranian armed forces have been improving since the Beijing agreement,\u201d Bagheri said after the meeting, according to Iranian state media.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia has welcomed Iran\u2019s nuclear talks<\/a> with the US, saying it supported efforts to resolve regional and international disputes.<\/p>\n

Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed in a 2023 deal brokered by China to re-establish relations after years of hostility that had threatened stability and security in the Gulf region and helped fuel conflicts in the Middle East from Yemen to Syria.<\/p>\n

\u2018Crucial stage\u2019<\/p>\n

The Saudi defence minister\u2019s trip coincided with a visit to Iran by the UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi, who warned that the US and Iran were running out of time to reach a deal.<\/p>\n

Iranian and US delegations are set to gather<\/a> in Rome on Saturday for a second round of Omani-mediated negotiations, a week after the longtime foes held their highest-level talks since US President Donald Trump abandoned a landmark nuclear accord during his first term in 2018.<\/p>\n

Since re-entering the White House in January, Trump has revived his so-called \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d policy imposing punishing economic sanctions against Iran and threatened military action if Tehran does not agree to a deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in a very crucial stage of these important negotiations. We know we don\u2019t have much time, this is why I am here \u2026 to facilitate this process,\u201d Grossi said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working hard and we want to succeed,\u201d he told a joint news conference with Iran\u2019s atomic energy agency chief Mohammad Eslami, acknowledging that the effort to secure a deal was \u201cnot an easy process\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked about US President Donald Trump\u2019s threats to attack Iran, Grossi urged people to \u201cconcentrate on our objective.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we get to our objective, all of these things will evaporate because there will be no reason for concern,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In March, Trump sent<\/a> a letter to Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urging talks and warning of possible military action if Iran refused.<\/p>\n

Khamenei has cautioned that while the talks with the United States had started well, they could yet prove fruitless.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe negotiations may or may not yield results,\u201d he said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Western governments have long accused Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons capability, an ambition Tehran has consistently denied.<\/p>\n

Since the nuclear deal\u2019s collapse in 2018, Iran has abandoned all limits on its programme, and enriches uranium to up to 60 percent purity, near weapons-grade levels of 90 percent.<\/p>\n

Surveillance cameras installed by the IAEA have been disrupted, while Iran has barred some of the Vienna-based agency\u2019s most experienced inspectors.<\/p>\n

But despite the tensions between Iran and the agency, its access has not been entirely revoked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia\u2019s Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman has met several Iranian officials before a second round of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[774,839,12,12617,8041,6506,8406,49,978,286,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-28301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-iran","9":"tag-middle-east","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-nuclear-energy","12":"tag-nuclear-weapons","13":"tag-saudi-arabia","14":"tag-united-nations","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-us-canada","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}