Iran and Saudi Arabia hold joint naval exercise in Sea of Oman
Saudi spokesman confirms war games; Iran’s naval chief, state media indicate joint drills with ex-foe Riyadh in Red Sea, Indian Ocean

Saudi Arabia held military exercises with Iran and other countries recently in the Sea of Oman, the Saudi defense ministry spokesman said in a statement to AFP Wednesday.
The two Middle East rivals, which have long backed opposing sides in conflict zones across the region, severed diplomatic ties in 2016. However, Shiite Muslim-dominated Iran and Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia resumed relations last year under a surprise China-brokered deal, even as Riyadh appeared poised to sign a normalization deal with Tehran’s arch-foe, Israel.
“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,” Brigadier General Turki al-Malki told AFP.
The war games came after ISNA, the official Iranian news agency, said on Monday said the two former foes were planning joint military drills in the Red Sea.
“Saudi Arabia has asked that we organize joint exercises in the Red Sea,” the commander of Iran’s navy, Admiral Shahram Irani, was quoted as saying by ISNA.
But on Wednesday Malki said: “No other exercises are being addressed during this period of time.”

Iranian state media on Sunday reported that Iran was part of a military drill in the northern Indian Ocean alongside Russia and Oman, as well as six observer countries including Saudi Arabia.
Since November, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have waged a campaign of attacks against ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in what they say is a show of solidarity with Palestinians during Israel’s war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
The Houthis have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition since 2015, months after they seized the capital Sanaa and most of Yemen’s population centers, forcing the internationally recognized government south, to Aden.
Saudi Arabia, which has backed the Aden government, has engaged in a delicate balancing act as the world’s biggest oil exporter tries to extricate itself from the war on its doorstep.

Saudi Arabia has also long mulled normalization with Iran’s arch-foe, Israel, in return for security guarantees from the United States.
On Wednesday, before flying to Riyadh to discuss the normalization, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he hoped Israel would seize the “incredible opportunity” presented by Iran’s October 1 ballistic missile attack to pursue normalization.
Israel has vowed to respond to that attack. Saudi Arabia, which helped Israel fend off Iran’s first barrage in April, has sealed its airspace as a route for Israel’s response, according to three Gulf sources cited by Reuters. An Iranian official told the agency that Tehran had warned Saudi Arabia it could not guarantee the safety of Saudi oil facilities if Israel goes through with a reported plan to strike oil facilities in Iran.
In late 2023, Israel-Saudi normalization seemed to be just around the corner, with two Israeli ministers making unprecedented public visits to the desert kingdom just days before October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill around 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
The normalization deal is now widely seen as dead in the water, as Riyadh is conditioning it on the establishment of a Palestinian state — a nonstarter for Israel.
Lazar Berman contributed to this report.