Saudi Arabia on Sunday voiced “great concern” after Iranian state media reported that a helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi had gone missing, and offered to help with the response.
“We affirm that the Kingdom stands by the sisterly Islamic Republic of Iran in these difficult circumstances and its readiness to provide any assistance that the Iranian agencies need,” the foreign ministry of the Gulf kingdom said in a statement.
Iranian search and rescue teams were scouring a fog-shrouded mountainside as Iranian state media said “an accident happened to the helicopter” transporting Raisi, a 63-year-old ultraconservative.
Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been on opposing sides of regional conflicts, including in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
In 2016 bilateral ties were severed after attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran during protests over Riyadh’s execution of Shiite cleric Nimr Al-Nimr.
But in March 2023 the Middle East heavyweights announced a surprise rapprochement brokered by China, and they have been in relatively frequent contact in recent months as they worked to contain the war triggered in Gaza by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel.
That diplomatic outreach included the first phone call between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Raisi — just five days after the war broke out — and a visit by Raisi to Riyadh in November for a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.