“Saudi Arabia is responsible for the damage to the embassy building and the injury to some of its staff”, Iranian state television news reported that Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said.
Advertisement
Yemen’s capital, Sanaa and other parts of the country are under the control of Shiite rebels known as Houthis, who are backed by Iran.
Saudi Arabia severed ties with Iran on Sunday after crowds of protesters attacked two of its diplomatic posts in Iran.
The crisis between conservative Sunni kingdom and Shi’ite power Iran, both major oil exporters, started when Saudi Arabia executed Shi’ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr on January 2, triggering outrage among Shi’ites across the Middle East.
Mr Nimr’s death sparked demonstrations in many countries including Iran, where protesters stormed and set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran as well as the kingdom’s consulate in second city Mashhad.
The Iranian government has banned the import of all products made in Saudi Arabia, state TV channel IRINN reported.
On Tuesday, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said Riyadh can not hide the “crime” of killing a religious cleric by severing diplomatic ties with Tehran.
On Thursday the Turkish foreign ministry summoned Iran’s ambassador in relations to the recent tensions and reports from Iran that have linked Erdogan to the execution.
On Friday, the state-run Saudi Press Agency said that a man complained of being kidnapped at gunpoint by a gang and beaten in eastern Saudi Arabia.
Despite these provocations, Zarif said Iran has refused to retaliate or even downgrade diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.
Iran denounced those attacks, but the repercussions quickly rippled across the region and beyond with Saudi allies Bahrain, Djibouti, Somalia and Sudan following Riyadh’s example and cutting diplomatic ties with Tehran.
The Saudi side has not confirmed the airstrike claim.
Saudi Arabia, in the past have accused Iran for orchestrating the rebellion in Yemen using Houthis.
In other developments, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir arrived in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, for meetings with Pakistani leaders. Mohammed al-Nimr, the sheikh’s brother, said people planned to hold a funeral Thursday for the cleric, though Saudi authorities already buried his corpse in an undisclosed cemetery.
Advertisement
The ban could impact the Saudi economy, which benefits from the 600,000 Iranians who contribute to kingdom’s $18 billion religious tourism industry each year.
