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Saudi Arabia wants regional stability and is not opposed to talks with Iran, provided Tehran stops sponsoring regional militias, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Tuesday night.
Prince Mohammed also said Iran s continued nuclear programme was a serious source of contention.
There is no country in the world that would accept the presence of armed militias on its borders
Mohammed bin Salman
Riyadh is also maintaining strong ties with the US, he said, in a wide-ranging interview with the
Liwan Al Mudaifer Show on Tuesday night, which was broadcast on state TV.
Prince Mohammed, who rarely gives TV interviews, also described in detail aspects of the country s ambitious Vision 2030 programme of reforms.
More than 109,000 patients are currently being treated in hospitals across the country and 517 are in intensive care units.
The pandemic has become a major crisis for the country, made more difficult to manage because decades of conflict have done significant damage to its healthcare system.
Iraq has suffered from shortages in medical supplies and life-saving drugs, as well as the trained staff needed to administer them.
Iraq received its first vaccine shipment in early March as the public voiced their anger over the delay in securing doses compared with other countries in the region.
Nearly 300,000 people have been vaccinated so far, less than one per cent of the country s total population of 40 million.
Baghdad is a natural venue for such discussions because Iraq is a friendly nation to the countries involved and is in a position to facilitate such talks because it is affected by the tensions between them, Sajad Jiyad, an Iraqi analyst with the Century Foundation said.
“Iraq in the past has hosted such talks and facilitated messages and communication between them. Even when the US and Iran began talks on the nuclear deal they also held talks in Baghdad,” said Mr Jiyad.
Officials from Riyadh told Arabic media outlets they had not been involved in any meeting in Iraq.
Saudi government officials have not responded to a request for comment.