dubai saudi arabias envoy to the united nations said the kingdom wanted more substantive talks with iran but that tehran was so far biding its time and playing games in the discussionssaudi arabia and iran the regions sunni muslim and shiite powerhouses launched direct talks this year at a time global powers are trying to salvage a nuclear pact with tehran and as unled efforts to end the yemen war stallthe kingdom which cut ties with tehran in 2016 has described the talks as cordial but exploratory while an iranian official in october said they had gone a good distanceriyadhs un envoy abdallah almouallimi told saudi newspaper arab news in a video interview published on monday that no major results had been achievedwe would like to push these discussions towards substantive issues that involve the behaviour of the iranian government in the region mouallimi saidbut as long as the iranians continue to play games with these talks they are not going to go anywhere he said the iranians take a longterm attitude towards these talks we are not interested in talks for the sake of talkstensions between the two foes spiked in 2019 after an assault on saudi oil plants that riyadh blamed on iran a charge tehran denies and continue to simmer over yemen where a saudiled coalition is battling the iranaligned houthi groupit yemen has proved to be intractable simply because the houthis continue to receive a continuous supply of weapons and ammunition from their benefactors particularly iran mouallimi said reiterating a charge that both iran and the group rejectthe conflict is widely seen as a proxy war between riyadh and tehran which are vying for influence across the region