Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan still picked up the phone on Wednesday: on the other end of the line, Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s foreign minister, wanted Tehran to inform Riyadh of “the ongoing development of the situation, and ways to reduce tensions in order to restore security and stability in the region.” (https://english.alarabiya.net/News/saudi-arabia/2026/04/09/saudi-fm-receives-phone-call-from-iranian-counterpart-discusses-ways-to-reduce-tension-)
Hello—Hello of Prince bin Farhan and Araqchi, of unspecified time of the call and its duration, was otherwise the first publicly announced telephone contact between the two heads of diplomacy since the outbreak of the conflict between Israel and the US against Iran on February 28th . Retaliating against American-Israeli actions, in the 40 days of the conflict, Tehran repeatedly hit targets on the Arabian Peninsula (https://www.instagram.com/reel/DW3jnspDi1d/).
As of Wednesday afternoon, the Ministry of Defence in Riyadh reported that the air defence of the Saudi Kingdom “intercepted nine drones in the previous few hours, without specifying either the locations or the targets” (https://www.ft.com/content/115eb832-9a62-424f-a893-57156ce8abf7?syn-25a6b1a6=1).
On the same day, a little earlier, the first report arrived that the key Saudi “East-West” oil pipeline (on the map, between the Abqaiq field in the east of the country and the Yanbu oil port on the Red Sea, about 1,200 kilometres long) was exposed to some kind of armed attack. Whether it was a drone strike, and eventually whose, is not stated in the carefully worded text of the London “Financial Times”’ article , which was the first to report on the incident.
By the way, in mid-March, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince bin Farhan told Iran that the attacks on its neighbours in the region had destroyed all confidence in Tehran. “Iran is no longer a strategic partner, it never was,” and it could have been “if it took a different course” (https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/gulf/2026/04/09/saudi-and-iranian-foreign-ministers-hold-first-call-since-start-of-iran-war/).
In those days, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi called on Saudi Arabia to evict US bases from its territory, remarking that Tehran only targets enemy targets, that is, that “Iran respects the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and considers it a brotherly nation.”
As of Wednesday, some kind of incident—officially unconfirmed, seems to have happened on the Saudi oil pipeline “East-West”. On the same day, ministers of foreign affairs of Saudi Arabia and Iran, held a telephone conversation, which was not disclosed until a day later, on Thursday.
Is there something wrong about the attack on the only oil pipeline through which the Saudis can reliably deliver oil to customers in Asia at the moment?
