Chinese President Xi Jinping played a key role in helping to persuade the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore ties and end their seven-year diplomatic rift, a senior Beijing diplomat told the People’s Daily newspaper on Saturday.

Xi “personally persuaded the leaders of the two countries and supported Saudi and Iran to develop a friendly relationship as neighbors,” the director of the Chinese foreign ministry’s Department of West Asian and North African Affairs, Wang Di, told the government-linked newspaper.
Wang added that Beijing’s efforts to promote regional stability in the Middle East come amid “some large countries outside the region causing long-term instability” for what he described as their own “self-interest.” He also indicated that Beijing will be a “fair mediator” and that it will continue to be a “promoter of peace and stability in the Middle East.” 
The talks between Tehran and Riyadh were notable in that the US was not involved, despite having been a key diplomatic player in the region for some 75 years. 
Last month’s Beijing-brokered accord between Saudi Arabia and Iran was heralded as an important foreign-policy win for China. It also led to the kingdom launching peace talks designed to end the eight-year conflict in Yemen. It also signaled that Beijing’s “diplomatic credibility” in the region is gaining foothold with its economic influence, said Oliver John of Washington-based think tank Middle East Influence, according to Saturday’s South China Morning Post.