TEHRAN

Oman's foreign minister on Tuesday arrived in Iran’s capital Tehran in an unannounced visit for the second time in January.

Iranian Fars news agency stated that Yusuf bin Alawi will meet his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif to "discuss bilateral cooperation and the most important issues of common interests."

Bin Alawi had previously met Zarif on Jan. 17 in the Omani capital Muscat.

The Omani foreign minister had previously visited Iran to participate in the "Tehran Dialogue Forum" earlier this month.

During the forum, Bin Alawi said his country has important relations with both the Iranian and American sides and that it hears from both sides.

Earlier this month, Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' (IRGC) elite Quds Force, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad.

His death marked a dramatic escalation in tensions between the U.S. and Iran, which have often been at a fever pitch since Trump chose in 2018 to unilaterally withdraw Washington from a 2015 nuclear pact the world powers struck with Tehran.

In response to a question about Muscat's efforts to find a solution in Yemen, Bin Alawi had said: "There is no Omani effort or mediation between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis regarding the war."

The Yemeni crisis escalated in 2015 when a Saudi-led military coalition launched a devastating air campaign aimed at rolling back Houthi territorial gains.

Since then, tens of thousands of Yemenis are believed to have been killed and injured in the conflict, while another 14 million are at risk of starvation, according to the UN.

*Bassel Barakat contributed to this report from Ankara