German FM to visit Iran over Tehran-Riyadh tension

Baku. 16 January. REPORT.AZ/ German FM Frank-Walter Steinmeier is due in Tehran February 2 to facilitate the process of dialog between Iran and Saudi Arabia over the severed diplomatic ties, an informed source said Saturday.

Report informs citing the Iranian media, an informed source told an IRNA correspondent in Berlin that Germany’s Foreign Ministry has made the required coordination with Iranian officials for the upcoming visit of Frank-Walter Steinmeier to Tehran on February 2, 2016.

After consulting with Iranian authorities, the German top diplomat will depart for Riyadh to attend Janadriyah cultural festival and confer with Saudi officials on Tehran-Riyadh relations.

In the current month, Steinmeier has held several telephone conversations with his Iranian and Saudi counterparts and urged them to put aside their differences and prevent the escalation of tension in their relations which could undermine all the efforts of the past weeks on reconciliation in Syria.

It appears that the German diplomat’s visit to Iran a day before his visit to Saudi Arabia has been scheduled so as to clear the notion that Germany is only taking Riyadh’s side in this issue.

At the moment, the biggest concern of German government appepars to be bringing the Syria peace talks to a positive conclusion in order to prevent a new wave of Syrian refugees from entering the country.

A diplomatic row erupted on Jan. 3 after Saudi Arabia broke off ties with Iran over attack on its embassy in Tehran following the execution of a prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr by the Saudi regime.

So far a number of countries, including Indonesia, have expressed their readiness to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran to resolve the current tension between the two regional countries.