The conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the allies of Saudi Arabia who recalled their ambassadors and stopped air services with Iran, took place after radicals organized active actions against diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia and created serious tensions in the Middle East in response to the execution of Shiite preacher Nimr al-Nimr in Riyadh.
Despite the fact that the Iranian leadership almost immediately condemned the actions of its citizens and brought the organizers of this vandalism to justice. The leadership of Saudi Arabia and a number of Arab countries, Muslim countries, reacted to the events harshly. This creates a lot of problems in the unstable region.
Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor of MGIMO (University) of the MFA of Russia, political scientist, historian and journalist Elena Ponomareva in an interview for Vestnik Kavkaza was asked about the possible consequences of this confrontation and the ways of resolving the conflict between Tehran and Riyadh.
"If we look at the whole situation from the viewpoint of a serious international perspective through global problems so we will see that it is a very serious fact.
The fact is that Saudi Arabia and Iran are among the serious contenders for regional leadership in the region. Turkey and Egypt are also among those countries which intend to receive regional leadership. We also know that Turkey and Egypt have quite a difficult situation due to the activation of the Syrian crisis. In general, both Iran and Saudi Arabia are also in a difficult situation. But the fact is that the region is unstable and highly explosive. Frankly speaking, there is fault on the side of both the Saudis and the representatives of Iran in many aspects," the analyst said.
"What is the way out of this situation? The role of the world's leading players should be active. The role of the US, the Russian Federation, the EU and the regional countries are very important. It is necessary to assess what the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, said on the threshold of a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of the country. According to him, Azerbaijan will always play a stabilizing role in the region. At that moment, the republic itself has a number of problems, including the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but nevertheless, Azerbaijan is searching for political and diplomatic means to resolve the conflict. And, despite the existence of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, it tries to encourage all the participants in world politics toward peacefully resolving conflicts," Elena Ponomareva said.
"Above all, all countries should try to calm the Syrian crisis and fight against Daesh as a major terrorist threat. And only then should they determine the regional leader. In addition, recent history shows that relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran have experienced different times," she reminded.
"Policy issues may be flexible, if they don't decisively affect important interests for the country. American political scientist Hans Morgenthau formulated the four basic rules of diplomacy. Some of them are: countries must be prepared to compromise on all matters that are not extremely essential for them. In this situation, the confrontation in the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia against the backdrop of the Syrian crisis and the strengthening of such a terrorist monster as Daesh is not extremely essential for the two countries. So I hope very much that in the end they will succeed in localizing the crisis," Elena Ponomareva concluded.
