Saudi Arabia expects new agreement between Iran, US to 'restrain Tehran more' - report

Saudi Arabia expects any new agreement from talks between the United States and Iran to "restrain Tehran," even more so than the previous nuclear agreement, a source in the Saudi royal family told Israel's public broadcaster KAN on Friday night.

The comments come as American and Iranian negotiators arrive in Oman to begin discussions on a deal that would see Iran give up all nuclear weapons development and allow for the destruction of the facilities.

This would be a serious step up from the terms of the previous Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which limited Iranian nuclear facilities and production.

The JCPOA was completed in 2015 and was revoked in 2018 by Donald Trump after he accused Iran of violating the deal.

Restraining Iran

The source told KAN that if "Iran really opens its nuclear facilities and allows full supervision of them, and in addition abandons its branches in the region and we avoid war, then that is a good result."

They emphasized that Saudi Arabia would expect the new agreement to restrain Iran much more than the JCPOA had.

The source said that Saudi Arabia wanted increased stability and that, currently, it seemed as if things were swinging between a solid agreement and war. 

They indicated that they wanted to see an agreement, especially if it was "not empty of content like the agreement in 2015."

Iranian officials pushed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to negotiate with the US because a war would topple the regime, The New York Times reported.