Iran-Saudi Deal To Resume Ties Stirs Controversy In Iran

“You can imagine such discussions are sensitive and highly consequential for the US citizens who have been wrongfully detained. We will not detail any diplomatic efforts underway,” a senior official in Washington is reported to have said told Hannah Kaviani, a journalist at Radio Farda.

It comes amidst a public statement in which Washington has called Iran’s claim of a prisoner swap deal, a “cruel lie” but the latest revelations offer hope for families whose loved ones are held hostage in the Islamic Regime, that negotiations are really underway.

Roger Carstens, the US Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs (SPEHA), is on a delegation to Doha this week in which hostages are to be a major talking point, though it is unknown how many dual-national hostages are currently being held in Iran.

“Special Envoy Carstens will deliver remarks at the Global Security Forum and engage with government representatives and stakeholders on matters related to the resolution of wrongful detention and hostage cases worldwide,” the State Department added.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani claimed on Monday that a prisoner exchange is "feasible" and asked the US officials to be "realistic" in this regard.

"If the American side takes a realistic approach to this issue, the exchange of prisoners can be carried out as a completely humanitarian issue," he said.

"It is good that Saudi Arabia and Iran want to develop a less confrontational relationship with each other, and that is what can be said about it," Scholz said at a news conference on Monday alongside Bhutan's prime minister, Lotey Tshering.

Scholz's remark was one of the first by Western leaders regarding an agreement signed in Beijing on March 10, whereby Tehran and Riyadh agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations after seven years of hostility. China played the role of a broker and apparently a guarantor of the deal.

Iranian officials and media have widely portrayed the agreement as a huge defeat for the United States and Israel in the Middle East and the ascendance of China as a superior power in the Middle East.

Relations between Western states and Iran have deteriorated in the past six months and long-running negotiations over Tehran's nuclear issue came to a deadlock last September. A harsh crackdown on protests by the Iranian regime and its supply of killer drones to Russia worsened relations.

China and Europe, both dependent on oil imports, can benefit from lack of conflict in the Persian Gulf region.

Reports from Iran say dozens more students have been banned from entering the universities of Tehran and Tabriz, a tactic which has been used throughout the Woman, Life, Freedom protests which began in September.

Having been one of the main centers of popular protests, the regime has increased the number of security agents at campuses and beefed up inspection of the students’ belongings.

According to the country's Student Union Council, 40 students of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences were summoned to the disciplinary committee after they held protests against the mysterious chemical attacks which have taken place in scores of schools and dormitories since November.

Activist Zia Nabavi claimed that last week, he and a number of other students of Allameh University in Tehran were banned from entering the campus after they staged a protest against the serial poisonings which have affected hundreds of girls across the country.

Last week, over 300 university professors condemned the organized chemical attacks in a statement, declaring that the perpetrators of the "horrible crime" are among the "cruelest, most dangerous and most hated" enemies of children and teenagers.

"This is a shame that despite claims to protect domestic and cross-border security, the government has not taken preventive measures in the face of this obvious threat to national security," read the statement.

In an interview with London-based Asharq Al-Awsat, bin Farhan emphasized that the agreement announced March 10 in Beijing with Chinese mediation and apparent guarantees, shows a joint desire by Iran and Saudi Arabia to “resolve disputes through communication and dialogue.”

He underscored, however, “This does not mean that an agreement has been reached to resolve all pending disputes between them.”

The biggest dispute is the conflict in Yemen where the two countries have fought each other indirectly for 8 years. Iran has backed Houthi rebels who pushed the internationally recognized government out of the capital and proceeded to conquer territories beyond their ethnic-religious traditional domain.

As Saudi Arabia backed the anti-Houthi forces with direct military involvement, Houthis used Iranian missiles and drones to launch hundreds of attacks against targets inside Saudi territory.

Most analysts believe that Riyadh wants to end the Yemen conflict as it embarks on an ever-ambitious plan of economic development, which needs security.

Executive Director of The Washington Institute Robert Sadloff in a long series of tweets Sunday referred to the Saudi quest for fast economic growth, quoting a senior Saudi official who said growth “can be sidetracked through insecurity, whether from Houthi missiles or the threat of [Iranian] nuclear blackmail.”

The Saudi foreign minister in his interview emphasized the economic factor. “We, in the Kingdom, hope to open a new chapter with Iran and bolster cooperation that would consolidate security and stability and push forward development and prosperity, not just in both our countries, but the entire region.”

Former Iranian diplomat Javid Qorban-Ogli told Didban website in Tehran Monday that ending the Yemen conflict is the top Saudi objective. “Saudi Arabia is a conservative regime which tries to avoid headaches. It pursues an ambitious development plan, which needs security and stability in the region.”

He also listed Tehran’s reasons for resuming relations with Riyadh. “Iran, the other side in this agreement, is facing a serious economic crisis, social and political chaos and multiple other crises because of its wrong foreign policy.” The third actor in this deal is China, he said, adding that Beijing seeks “energy security.”

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Naser Kanaani Monday reiterated that the agreement with the Saudis is the result of nearly two years of talks in Baghdad and Oman, taken to a higher level in recent months by Chinese mediation. His remark shows that although the two sides could have reached an agreement without Beijing, one or both countries at some point decided to have China some sort of guarantor.

Sadloff also argued in his tweets that Riyadh to an extent lost confidence in the Biden administration for securing Iran’s containment. As Tehran expands it nuclear program getting closer to a nuclear threshold state and Washington maintains restrictions on arms sales to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s confidence in receiving American protection decreased.

“Resuming ties with Iran is a dramatic expression of this lack of confidence in US,” Sadloff said.

Several factors have caused the situation to reach breaking point, including dam construction, climate change, inefficient water consumption by agriculture and industries, and the use of underground aquifers as sources for illegal agricultural water extraction wells.

Ali Beitollahi, heading the disaster task force on the issue at the Road, Housing and Urban Development Research Center of Iran, said the approximate area of subsidence zones in the country is now 18.5 million hectares, almost 11% of Iran's total area.

Beitollahi has been warning of the danger for several years, and says if action is not taken, it endangers the lives of nearly 49% of Iran’s population.

He said, ”Three hundred and eighty cities and 9,200 villages are at risk of land subsidence, and in some cases the entire area of the cities are located in the subsidence zones.”

Tehran, Razavi Khorasan in the east and Esfahan in central Iran are the provinces most at risk, Razavi Khorasan in the most imminent danger.

However, international reports claim the danger is even worse, nearing a humanitarian crisis. Science journal claims that more than 98% of Iran's 1.648 million km of land faces land subsidence.

Internationally, a rate of subsidence greater than 4mm per year is considered a crisis and yet Iran's land is sinking at an astonishing rate of 6cm per year as a result of 25 years of water level decline in the plains.

Ground subsidence in urban areas have resulted in power outages, bursting of gas pipes, deformation of rails, emergence of sinkholes, tilting of buildings, the appearance of cracks and ditches in roads and even loss of human life.

Continued water level declines will reduce the ground's water permeability and turn fertile plains into barren deserts.

Kamran Davari from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, told ISNA state news agency that many cases of subsidence have been reported from some areas in the Mashhad plain in the northeast where subsidence is between at least 3cms and a staggering 15-17.5cms in the northwest of Mashhad city. Davari said the situation had reached “hyper critical”.

Based on the underground water quality zoning map, the areas with good water quality have decreased drastically in Mashhad over the past decade.

"If the electrical conductivity of water exceeds 1,500, it indicates that the water is no longer suitable for drinking,” explained Davari. “Unfortunately, in the eastern areas of Mashhad, the electrical conductivity is currently between 3,000 to 5,000.”

The journal Taylor & Francis Online confirms the fears. In research last year, it claimed: “The province of Razavi Khorasan in the northeast of Iran had the largest area (about 3500 km2) vulnerable to land subsidence occurrence”.

It warned of other risk-prone areas in the future. “Based on the land subsidence susceptibility map, the provinces of Ardabil, Kurdistan, West and East Azerbaijan, Sistan and Baluchistan and Kermanshah, although not currently undergoing a high rate of land subsidence, will be at high risk of severe land subsidence in the future.”