Could be, or it could be he is using Barca interest to extract more money from them.
"You want to beat FC fuckin Barcelona to signing me, show me more money 💰 "
Croatia is culturally not too connected with the East and Saudi Arabia (you could argue that Cr7 is a money driven egoist, Benzema, Kante and Zyech are Muslims, so they had much stronger reasons to move there. Just like a historical Barca-Brazilians-Dutch players connection).
Brozovic is, on the other hand, a guy who smokes, gets drunk all the time, causing problems all the time and in general his lifestyle and roots has zero connections with Saudi or East.
He would get deported or ended in jail after 2 weeks.
So, from that point of view, I don't think that he is using Barca to get the better offer from Saudis, instead he is waiting for Barca's offer.
But since Barca is broke and we have troubles registering players, Saudis are an option.
But all in all, imo, he will go to Saudi only if other options from rich European clubs fail.
Rumors say that he is proposing weird stuff from Saudis.
Whatever they offer, he is asking for something different or even more weird and illogical.