Iraq-Saudi border crossing reopens after 30 years
The Arar crossing has remained closed since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
The Arar border crossing linking Iraq and Saudi Arabia has reopened for trade after a 30-year closure, Iraq's border authority said Wednesday.
The Saudi-Iraqi border crossing was closed in the 1990s after Saudi Arabia severed ties following Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's invasion of neighboring Kuwait. The crossing has remained closed, with exceptions made for Iraqis to cross to Mecca for the annual hajj pilgrimage.
On Wednesday, the Saudi ambassador to Iraq joined Iraqi and Saudi officials at a ribbon cutting for the crossing’s reopening, which marks the latest effort to deepen economic cooperation between the two countries. During the summer, Saudi Arabia and Iraq signed a number of investment agreements on energy and sports, as well as a memorandum of understanding on coronavirus cooperation.
Relations between largely Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and majority Shiite Iraq have warmed in recent years, beginning with the reopening of the Saudi Embassy in Baghdad in 2015 and a rare visit by a Saudi foreign minister to Baghdad in 2017. That same year, US special envoy Brett McGurk paid a visit to the Arar crossing in a show of support for its reopening.
