Just over a month after the Beijing Accord restored ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the regional landscape is witnessing not war, death and destruction but ministers and diplomats dashing from one capital to another to discuss initiatives to promote political and economic cooperation.
The Foreign Ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia have met in Beijing to discuss the details of mending their relations — opening embassies, operating direct flights and facilitating issue of visas. Officials of both countries have since gone to the respective capitals to reopen their diplomatic and consular missions that have been shuttered for over seven years.
Saudi and Omani diplomats have been in Sanaa to discuss the terms of a ceasefire in Yemen. And, the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, isolated for a decade, has been a welcome guest in Oman and the United Arab Emirates, while the Syrian Foreign Minister, Faisal Mekdad, has visited Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Truce in Yemen
Yemen is an early test-case for the resilience of the Saudi-Iran accord. The Saudis need an early exit from their costly Yemeni misadventure and want Iran to facilitate this by ending military supplies to the Houthis. But the kingdom is also aware that direct talks with Houthi leaders are essential for any peace process to move forward.
In early April, it was reported that the terms of a truce have been finalised between the Saudis and the Houthis: a ceasefire, an exchange of prisoners, the reopening of Sanaa airport, free access to Hodeidah port, the lifting of the blockade of Taiz by the Houthis, and the reunification of the Central Bank and payment of salaries to government employees from the oil revenues. These have been contentious issues in the past; clearly, the Saudi side has made major concessions to obtain the truce. Once the truce holds, the second stage of negotiations will cover: withdrawal of all foreign troops, the shape of the new political order, and the affirmation of a unified state. These discussions will be an intra-Yemeni matter. But, given the number of political groups in the country and the deep divisions between them on ideological, political, tribal and sectarian lines, it will be a formidable challenge to obtain agreement on these issues.
Again, as of now, it is unclear what role the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will play in the peace process, given that it controls several Yemeni ports, the strategically important islands of Perim, at the Bab al Mandab, and Socotra, in the Gulf of Aden, and supports the separatist Southern Transitional Council based in Aden.
However, the mood in Yemen is one of cautious optimism; a Houthi spokesperson has said that “an atmosphere of peace hangs over the region”.
The accommodation of Syria
The earthquake that devastated Turkey and Syria in early February this year encouraged diplomatic engagements with Damascus, which have accelerated after the Saudi-Iran accord. Soon after the earthquake, Mr. Assad received delegations from Lebanon, Jordan and the UAE, spoke to the leaders of Bahrain and Egypt, and visited Oman on February 20.
After the accord that brought together the two countries that had been on opposite sides in the Syrian conflict, Mr. Assad visited Russia and the UAE, signalling the end of Syria’s political isolation over 10 years. In Abu Dhabi, the UAE President, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, welcomed Mr. Assad by saying that it was “time for Syria to return to the Arab fold”.
Syrian Foreign Minister Mekdad’s visit to Cairo in early April, was the first such visit in a decade; this was followed by a visit to Jeddah. Saudi Arabia is expected to invite Syria to attend the Arab League summit in Riyadh in May, thus completing Syria’s political rehabilitation.
Russia’s principal ongoing effort is to reconcile Syria and Turkey: but further engagement is proving difficult as Syria insists on full Turkish military withdrawal from northern Syria. Substantial interactions are expected after the Turkish elections on May 14.
An emerging regional order?
The (now former) United States President, Barack Obama, in March 2016, in an interview with the Atlantic magazine, had urged Saudi Arabia and Iran “to find an effective way to share the neighbourhood and institute some sort of ‘cold peace’”. Ironically, in these hectic diplomatic interactions across West Asia, the U.S. is on the sidelines, often as a disgruntled observer. Clearly, the region has shrugged off the U.S. yoke and is taking foreign policy decisions independently of American wishes — the Beijing Accord illustrates this most dramatically.
Saudi Arabia has become a “dialogue partner” of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and wants membership of BRICS. It will continue to buy weapons from the U.S., but is also diversifying its suppliers; it has bought ballistic missiles from China and has recently purchased Chinese technology to manufacture its own missiles. Saudi Arabia and Russia remain solid partners in the “OPEC +” conclave to manage oil production and prices.
Iran already has substantial defence, energy, economic and logistical connectivity ties with Russia and China — the three countries carried out another joint naval exercise in March. Iran has a central place in the Belt and Road Initiative, and is working with Russia to close the small gaps in the 7,200-km International North-South Transport Corridor that links Moscow with the western coast of India.
These developments presage two scenarios: one, a West Asian cooperative order founded on diplomatic engagements among regional states. This will in turn be part of a larger order, embracing Eurasia and the Indian Ocean, that is defined by multipolarity and encourages regional states to pursue their interests through diverse interactions and alignments. China can be expected to be at the centre of much of this diplomatic activity.
Talmiz Ahmad is a former Indian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates
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