Having agreed to exchange ambassadors and reopen their embassies within two months, bitter rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran issued a trilateral statement March 10 after a decisive round of talks facilitated by China. While the deal will have repercussions throughout the Middle East, another major player that stands to gain is Pakistan, Iran’s immediate neighbor and a close strategic ally of Riyadh.
Since breaking diplomatic ties in 2016, Iran and Saudi Arabia have remained on opposite sides of nearly every regional conflict, from Syria to Iraq to Yemen. Iraq and Oman had also worked to engage the two rivals, but it was Beijing that finally managed this geopolitical shift.
Pakistan attempted to resolve the regional rift as soon as it happened and continued mediation efforts over the years. Being home to the second largest Shiite population after Iran (though it is a majority Sunni state), Islamabad had to deal with religious and sectarian violence by extremist groups from both sides whenever the matter intensified.
"One of biggest winners" from deal
