Iraq brings its Mideast rivals together in bid to ease tensions
BAGHDAD — Arab heads of state and senior officials from the region including archenemies Iran and Saudi Arabia held a rare meeting Saturday at a conference hosted by Iraq. The meeting is aimed at easing Mideast tensions and underscored the Arab country’s new role as mediator.
French President Emmanuel Macron also attended the Baghdad meeting, hailing it as a major boost for Iraq and its leadership. The country had been largely shunned by Arab leaders for the past few decades because of security concerns amid back-to-back wars and internal unrest, its airport frequently attacked with rockets by insurgents.
On Saturday, Iraqi leaders were on hand at Baghdad International Airport to receive the red carpet arrivals. They included Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, Jordan’s King Abdullah and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. It was the first official visit to Iraq by the Qatari emir, whose country’s ties with Saudi Arabia are also fraught with tensions. Relations have improved recently since a declaration was signed with the kingdom and other Arab Gulf states to ease a yearslong rift.
Among the participants were also the foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia, whose rivalry over regional supremacy has often played out to deadly consequences in Iraq and other countries across the region, including Yemen and Lebanon. Saudi Arabia was represented by its foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, and Iran with its foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
It was not immediately clear if the two ministers held a meeting on the sidelines. Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hassan avoided a question as to whether they did, saying only: “These meetings in fact began in Iraq, and in Baghdad, and these meetings are continuing, and will continue.”
“What we understood from the two sides, or the parties, is a great and wide desire to reach positive results to solve the outstanding problems between the two countries,” he added.
An Iraqi government official had said he anticipated Saudi and Iranian officials would hold talks on the sidelines of Saturday’s meetings. He said the aim was to create a political atmosphere for resolving outstanding problems.
The high-level meeting in Baghdad sent a message of Arab solidarity with Iraq, which has increasingly been pulled into Iran’s orbit in recent years.
“This summit marks the return of Iraq as a pivotal player in the region,” said political analyst Ihsan al-Shammari, who heads the Iraqi Political Thinking Center in Baghdad. “Having rival parties be seated at the same table is a significant step in that direction.”
Iraqi special forces deployed in Baghdad, particularly around the Green Zone, seat of the Iraqi government, where the meeting was held. Participants were expected to discuss a regional water crisis, the war in Yemen and a severe economic and political crisis in Lebanon that has brought the country to the point of collapse.
Lebanon, which has been without a functional government for the past year, and Syria, which has been suspended from the Arab League since 2011, were not represented at the meeting.
Iraq’s message at the summit is that it stands at the same distance from all sides, the Iraqi official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity.