Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers hold talks after Haniyeh’s death in Tehran

Foreign Ministers of Saudi Arabia and Iran, Faisal bin Farhan and Ali Bagheri Kani, held a telephone call on Thursday to discuss the situation in the Middle East, at a time of maximum tension following the assassination in Tehran of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the two diplomats discussed bilateral relations “and the latest developments in the region,” without providing further details.

Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries in the Middle East that has not commented on the assassination of Haniyeh, attributed to Israel, who died in an attack on his residence in the Iranian capital, where he was attending the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.

Although several countries have accused Israel of carrying out the targeted killing, the Israeli government has not claimed responsibility for the attack, which has raised alarm bells in the region amid growing concerns about a possible expansion of the war in the Gaza Strip.

Saudi Arabia has strongly condemned the Israeli offensive in Gaza, which has already claimed nearly 40,000 lives, but has largely avoided being the champion of the campaign against Israel’s practices in the enclave and in the region, although it has occasionally called for “restraint” so that the war does not spread.

Indeed, before the outbreak of the war in Gaza last October, Saudi Arabia had expressed its desire to establish relations with Israel, although it had made normalisation conditional on the recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

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