Iran oil minister claims Saudi counterpart is a friend and reduces Aramco attack tensions

Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh said his Saudi counterpart Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman is a “friend” brushing off the heightened tensions between Iran and Saudi in the wake of the cruise missile and drone attacks against Saudi Aramco facilities in September.

Zanganeh was speaking at an energy forum in Moscow on Wednesday.

“Despite this long-term up and down political relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia we have been friends and I hope to be friends in future, we have no difficulty with him,” he said.

“We believe that all the Muslim countries, all the neighbor countries, should have a peaceful environment between themselves [...] Our enemy is another country out of this area," he added, in a thinly veiled swipe at the US.

Although Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attack on the plants last month, Saudi Arabia and the US blamed Houthi ally Iran for its role, or responsibility, in the attack.

Asked about the attack’s effect on Iran, Zanganeh said “it has no effect on Iran’s production and export, but these issues increase the tension in the region.”

On Monday, an Iranian government spokesman said Saudi Arabia had sent messages to Iran’s president using the leaders of third countries as conduits, but did not specify their content.

“What the Iranian speaker said about the kingdom sending messages to the Iranian regime is not accurate,” Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs said on Twitter late on Tuesday.

“What happened was that sister countries sought to calm the situation, and we told them that the position of the kingdom was to always seek security and stability in the region.”