Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi put forward a proposal to serve as a go-between in bringing Saudi Arabia and the Houthi movement to the table for talks, according to a Telegram post from his office issued after he spoke by phone with Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan on Sunday. Araghchi voiced unease about the trajectory of the conflict, arguing that an ongoing preference for force over negotiation risked deepening an already fraught impasse.
Pointing to the futility of armed approaches to the region's unresolved tensions, he put forward Iran's readiness to act as a facilitator in opening talks between Saudi Arabia and Yemen toward a negotiated settlement.
Over several days, Houthi forces launched repeated missile and drone strikes against Saudi airports, a pattern of attacks that led international carriers to halt flights and left air travel across the region considerably disrupted. Operations at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh were brought to a halt after the civil aviation authority released a statement citing the need to verify that the facility's infrastructure and equipment met readiness standards before resuming service.
Closure at King Khalid International Airport is projected to hold through 17 October, with a number of carriers having pushed their own service halts well into 2027. According to a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) that aviation authorities released later that day, closure of the airport is set to continue through 2100 GMT on 17 October.
Operations at the facility remained suspended following a Saturday assault that left 13 people dead and more than 300 others with injuries — a toll that represented the heaviest loss of life from a single violent incident in the country in over ten years. A single fatality and close to twelve people wounded resulted from a separate incident that unfolded the following day.
The episode added to the pressures facing Saudi aviation, an industry already contending with the overlapping weight of regional instability and rising fuel expenditure. Concerns have also been raised about civil aviation becoming a target in armed conflict, with Mark Zee, who founded the aviation safety advisory organisation OPSGROUP, describing the frequency and intensity of such attacks on commercial air travel as without historical precedent and calling for a reassessment of how the current threat environment is understood, alongside a more measured approach to the risks involved.
Flight-tracking data from Flightradar24 recorded a pattern of aircraft rerouting away from the city that Monday, even as other jets continued through Saudi airspace and put down at Jeddah, the country's principal airport along its western coastline. Data from Cirium, an aviation analytics firm, put the flight cancellation rate at 46.4% across Saudi Arabia's airport network.
