Pakistan offers to host Saudi-Iran reconciliation talks

President Xi Jinping witnessed ties between China and Saudi Arabia lifted to a higher level on Tuesday by securing wide-ranging deals covering energy, industrial capacity cooperation and the Belt and Road Initiative.

China and Saudi Arabia have made a decision to establish a high-level committee to guide and coordinate bilateral cooperation, the two countries’ foreign ministers announced here Wednesday.

Mr Xi is likely to prove a popular visitor as both Iran and Saudi Arabia are major oil exporters, which needs to increase volume of sales to offset the impact of low crude prices, and China is one of their biggest customers.

The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz held official talks with the Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif yesterday at the Al-Yamamah Palace in Riyadh where they addressed bilateral relations between the two countries and regional and worldwide developments.

The schism came after protesters burned Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran following the kingdom’s January 2 execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

Premier Nawaz Sharif was in Riyadh on Monday to meet with Saudi King Salman.

In the presence of King Salman and President Xi, 14 agreements and memoranda of understanding were signed between the governments of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the People’s Republic of China.

The photo provided by the Saudi Press Agency on January 19, 2016, shows Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) being greeted by members of the Saudi Shura Council following his arrival in Riyadh. At the same time, it is important to note that in recent past Saudi Arabia was the first source of China’s oil imports.

China also has its own worries about the potential radicalisation of the Muslim Uyghur people in Xinjiang and much of China’s proposed security cooperation with the Arab world is set in the context of anti-terrorism, which has become a serious concern for Beijing.

A growing diplomatic dispute between Saudi Arabia, which is fighting to restore Mr Hadi’s government to power, and Iran – which is backing the Houthis – has damaged the outlook for any resolution to the conflict in Yemen.

In the run up to Xi’s trip, Chinese Communist Party leaders have dispatched envoys to Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia. “In a first step, a lot would be achieved if both sides brought the current situation under control, not let it escalate, and talked to each other”, he said. Most Chinese Muslims, who number about 30 million, are Sunni. By October, oil trade between the two nations had dropped more than 10 per cent year-on-year, with Russian Federation occasionally overtaking Saudi Arabia as China’s top monthly oil supplier.

China is now proposing a new role of “constructive engagement” and is urging Western powers to follow its example, the official Xinhua news agency reported.