Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said Tehran is determined to restore relations with Saudi Arabia, but Riyadh does not seem ready to do so, Mehr reports. 

"Saudi Arabia is still not ready to return to normal relations. We have the necessary intention and will to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia. If there is such intention on the part of Saudi Arabia in a real sense, normalization of relations will be quick and achievable," Amir Abdollahian said in Beirut on Friday.

He said Iran and Saudi Arabia have held five rounds of "important and positive" talks in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, and the foreign ministers of the two countries believe the talks should continue, Press TV reported.

As a first step, the Iranian foreign minister said the consulates general of both sides in the Iranian city of Mashhad and the Saudi city of Jeddah should be reopened to provide necessary consular services to citizens of both sides who want to visit Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia as well as Mashhad and other Iranian shrines.

A senior Iranian diplomat pointed to his brief talks with his Saudi counterpart in Amman in December and noted that both sides stressed that restoring relations between Tehran and Riyadh would have a positive impact on the two countries and the entire region.

Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic relations with Iran in January 2016 after Iranian protesters angered by the Saudi government's execution of prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr stormed the country's embassy in Tehran.