Saudi-Iran military drills highlight regional foes' warming ties amid Gaza war

Saudi Arabia and Iran are holding military drills in the Sea of Oman, a scenario that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

By The New Arab Staff

The announcement could not have been more unexpected: Saudi Arabia and Iran holding joint military drills in the Sea of Oman, waters that not so long ago many analysts envisioned as being a battleground between the two regional superpowers.

The two old foes held their first military exercises in the Sea of Oman, eight years after breaking diplomatic ties following the execution of Saudi Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr and subsequent attacks on Saudi diplomatic buildings in Iran.

These tensions took a surprise turn last year when a Beijing-brokered deal was announced, which saw the two countries resume relations, although suspicions lingered over rumours about possible Saudi moves to follow its neighbours, the UAE and Bahrain, and normalise relations with Iran.

This week, there was another twist in the saga, when Riyadh confirmed on Wednesday its armed forces had taken part in war games with Tehran.

"The Royal Saudi Naval Forces had recently concluded a joint naval exercise with the Iranian Naval Forces alongside other countries in the Sea of Oman," said Brigadier General Turki al-Malki, spokesperson for the Saudi defence ministry.

On Sunday, Iran's navy said it planned to take part in war games with the Saudi military in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, along with neighbours Oman and Russia.

"Saudi Arabia has asked that we organise joint exercises in the Red Sea," said Admiral Shahram Irani, the commander of the Iranian navy, according to the ISNA news agency.

On Wednesday, he added: "No other exercises are being addressed during this period of time."

Still, the scenario of these two countries - arch-rivals since Iran's 1979 revolution - holding military drills together in the Sea of Oman would have been unthinkable a few years ago, when Iran was locked in tensions with the US and Gulf states when Riyadh was immersed in a bloody stalemate with the Tehran-backed Houthis in Yemen and Iranian proxies fired missiles at Saudi oil installations.

In these waters, Iran's navy has also seized US-linked and other tankers over the past few years, again hiking concerns that the Strait of Hormuz might become the site of conflict. Iran has also used military drills as a show of strength against the US but has reached out to neighbours to take part in these exercises in recent years.

This all changed when China and Omani efforts led to the Saudi-Iran deal, and the war on Gaza reaffirming the need for regional stability. 

"The China-brokered deal between Iran and KSA seems to have been 'saved' by the violence Israel deploys in Gaza and Lebanon," Quentin de Pimodan, advisor at the Athens-based Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS), told The New Arab.

"I would have bet that neither Iran nor KSA would have been proactive in the agreement, and would have slowly let it die by itself, so as to not upset Beijing, but it looks like Israel, by its actions, is actually giving body to this agreement."

Saudi Arabia has pivoted away from its reliance on US security support in recent years, turning toward other partners such as China, a key trade partner, and Russia, which is part of the OPEC+ oil production framework.

Riyadh has also been invited to join BRICS, the China-Russia-led intergovernmental organisation that is widely seen as a counter-balance to US hegemony.

This week, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan led a delegation from Riyadh to the 16th BRICS summit in Kazan, which comes to the backdrop of the war on Gaza and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.