“Saudi Arabia is responsible for the damage to the embassy building and the injury to some of its staff”, Iran’s foreign-ministry spokesman, Hossein Jaber Ansari, reportedly said on the state television network, adding that the damage was “deliberate and intentional”.
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Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia on Wednesday night launched a rocket attack on the Iranian embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, which incurred damages to the building and wounded several Iranian guards.
President Hassan Rouhani wrote to Iran s judiciary chief Wednesday urging a quick and conclusive case against 50 suspects accused of involvement in the storming of Saudi Arabia s embassy in Tehran.
A Houthi militant walks on the rubble of the Chamber of Trade and Industry headquarters after it was hit by a Saudi-led air strike in Yemen’s capital Sanaa.
Sudan too gave Iranian diplomats two weeks to leave the country, following Khartoum’s decision to cut diplomatic relations with Tehran in solidarity with Saudi Arabia.
Iranian protesters set fires at the Saudi embassy in Tehran following the execution of Sheik Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Shiite cleric whose death sparked an outcry across much of the Shiite Muslim world.
Qatar’s foreign ministry called the embassy attack a “violation of worldwide charters and norms that ensure the security and protection of diplomatic missions and their members”.
Iran also announced that a ban on Iranians travelling to the Saudi holy city of Mecca for the umrah pilgrimage would remain in place indefinitely.
“We have treated these actions with magnanimity and nobleness but unfortunately our neighbour, Saudi Arabia, did not respond to it properly”, he said.
Tensions between Saudi Arabia, the main Sunni power, and Shiite-dominated Iran have erupted into a full-blown diplomatic crisis, sparking widespread worries of regional instability.
More than 1,040 people were detained in Shia protests in eastern Saudi Arabia between February 2011 and August 2014, according to Human Rights Watch.
An Arab coalition headed by Saudi Arabia has been carrying out airstrikes against Houthi positions in Yemen at the request of President-in-exhile Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi since late March.
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The Saudis say al-Nimr, one of the four Shiites who were executed, was being encouraged by Iran to foment unrest.
