Saudi Arabia invited Iran's President Raisi to visit, Tehran says

Iran says Saudi Arabia has invited Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi for an authoritative sojourn - conscionable implicit a week since the countries agreed to reconstruct diplomatic relations.

The invitation is said to person travel successful a missive from King Salman, but has not yet been confirmed by the Saudis.

The Middle East's caller past has been dominated by hostility betwixt the 2 nations.

China brokered the thaw, which could reshape the region's geopolitics.

A elder Iranian official, Mohammad Jamshidi, tweeted astir the invitation to sojourn the Saudi capital, Riyadh, saying Mr Raisi had welcomed it and "stressed Iran's readiness to grow co-operation".

Separately, Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told reporters that the 2 countries had agreed to clasp a gathering astatine overseas curate level, and that 3 imaginable locations had been proposed.

He did not sanction the locations, nor accidental erstwhile the gathering mightiness instrumentality place.

The BBC's Middle East Editor, Sebastian Usher, says the caller betterment successful bilateral relations, which came unexpectedly pursuing days of talks brokered by China, appears to beryllium gathering superior momentum.

Both person announced they volition reopen embassies wrong 2 months and re-establish commercialized and information relations.

This improvement was cautiously welcomed by many, including the US and the United Nations, aft erstwhile attempts astatine reconciliation were unsuccessful.

Saudi Arabia chopped ties successful January 2016 aft demonstrators stormed its embassy successful Tehran.

Since then, tensions betwixt the Sunni- and Shia-led neighbours person often been high, with each regarding the different arsenic a threatening powerfulness seeking determination dominance.

Mr Amir-Abdollahian besides said that Iran hoped steps would beryllium made to amended ties with Bahrain, a adjacent Saudi state that followed Riyadh successful severing diplomatic ties with Tehran successful 2016.

"We anticipation that immoderate obstacles betwixt Iran and Bahrain volition beryllium removed and we volition instrumentality basal steps to reopen the embassies," helium said.

Bahrain has not responded to the comments, but earlier welcomed the Iran-Saudi statement to reconstruct diplomatic ties.

Iran has besides expressed a willingness to resume oregon amended relations with different determination Arab rivals, including Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.