This is CBS, I am the world. I'm John Bachelors. Now come online conference, the president

joins me. Saudi Arabia and Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi

Arabia. Two members of a conversation now said to be diplomatically moving together, but

a mystery. Enemies, as long as I've covered the story of the Middle East, and now we welcome

Seema Shine, the head of the Iran Program at the Institute for National Security Studies

in Israel. Seema, a very good evening to you. Did this announcement surprise you and what

do we make of it now several weeks later? Good evening to you.

Good evening. It's not a surprise when it is concerned, the content of the renewal

of relations because Saudi Arabia and Iran were talking to each other for the last two

years. Sometimes in Baghdad, sometimes in Yemen, trying to overcome the difficulties between

the two countries and they didn't reach anything. So until the last event in Beijing, things

didn't work correctly for specifically I think for Saudi Arabia. But the surprise is

in the timing and as well as the moderator, the auspices under the auspices of China, that

was a surprise because as I said before, they were meeting in the region in Iran and

so the fact that they tried to overcome difficulties and to renew the diplomatic relations was not

new. The timing that they decided about it was a surprise and specifically the moderator.

Welcome. So when Hamid gave us a new year speech to the people of Iran, he didn't mention

the deal with the Saudi Arabia. What's the popular response to it in Iran and why would

he deemphasize it? There is a process of the Gulf States improving relations with Iran.

It started with the UAE and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia is the third and probably after Saudi

Arabia will come, we know already the meetings between Bahrain and Iran. So it is a process

and I think it is accepted very well in Iran because it shows in a way it shows that Iran

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