Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan told Arabic-language media organization Al-Arabiya that the rapprochement was the result of two years of talks.

Mehran Kamrava, a professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, said: "I don't think anyone saw this coming, especially not through Beijing. All eyes have been on the 'Baghdad track' and the discussions underway in Amman, Jordan, under the auspices of French diplomacy."

Kamrava, also head of the Iranian Studies Unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, said the announcement from Beijing is a major diplomatic breakthrough on several fronts, as it significantly reduces tensions in the Persian Gulf and stabilizes the region.

The breakthrough also marks a further decline in US diplomatic power in the region, and the assertion of strategic autonomy by China, Saudi Arabia and Iran, Kamrava said.

"This will also likely have positive consequences for Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, where Iran and Saudi Arabia have used different means to compete for influence and power," Kamrava added.

Seyed Mostafa Khoshcheshm, former professor at the Iranian Foreign Ministry's Faculty of International Relations, said that since Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi took office, his main agenda has focused on improving foreign trade, and this could only be done by de-escalating tensions with regional rival Saudi Arabia.