Acting quickly.

PERHAPS no other recent foray in diplomacy has attracted as much attention as the recent Chinese triumph in negotiating the Iran-Saudi agreement. It is a triumph that was achieved at a time when the United States and its Western allies were seeking to tighten the screws on China, with sanction upon sanction being imposed, scheduled meetings being cancelled and clear statements that while the US did not want war, they were in a direct competition that they intended to win if they could, without provoking a conflict. Loose statements at the US president's level suggested that the 'three assurances' on the Chinese aim of reunification of Taiwan were losing their value.

The US State Department has welcomed the success of Chinese diplomacy - in rather lukewarm terms - but the plethora of comments by Western commentators all question the durability of the rapprochement, given what they see as irreconcilable differences between an ostracised Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council - an organisation that owed its origins to apprehensions entertained by the largely Sunni countries of Iran's relationship with the Shias in the region, and in particular, Iran's relationship with the Houthis in Yemen. These fears may well be well founded. Neither the Saudis nor the Iranians have suggested that all issues are on their way to a solution, but the resurrection of a 20-year-old accord and the reopening of embassies are good signs.

What seems to have been missed, however, is what the current pleasant climate can do to make the region safer, specifically with regard to the FSO Safer, the tanker parked in the Yemeni port and in danger of collapsing.

In March 2015, soon after civil war began in Yemen, the tanker fell into Houthi hands; the force had taken control of the coastline in the area where it was moored. In the years that followed, the tanker's 'structural condition deteriorated significantly, leading to the risk of a catastrophic hull breach or explosion of oil vapours that would typically be suppressed by inert gas generated on board'. The tanker, at that point, was believed to have 1.14 million barrels of oil worth up to $80m, which 'became a point of contention in negotiations between the Houthi rebels and Yemeni government, both of which asserted claims to the cargo and vessel'.

The Saudis, UAE and Iran could deploy their resources to unload the oil from FSO Safer.

Earlier this month, the head of the United Nations Development Programme, Achim...