Since Saturday’s execution of four Shi’ite Muslims in Saudi Arabia, hundreds of thousands of the minority sect have marched nightly in protest, and their anger could herald wider unrest.
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The staff of the Iranian embassy in Riyadh and those of the consulate in Jeddah left “on board a private Iranian plane”, state news agency SPA reported.
Iranian accusations towards Saudi Arabia were launched days after the Saudi embassy in Teheran was ransacked by a mob in the aftermath of Ryadh’s execution of a Shia Saudi cleric.
Iran on Thursday accused Saudi Arabia of deliberately launching an air strike on its embassy in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, according to media reports.
Bahrain and Sudan followed suit, while Kuwait has recalled its envoy to Iran and the United Arab Emirates has downgraded diplomatic relations. Protesters also attacked the Saudi consulate in the city of Mashhad in northwestern Iran, with police intervening after rocks and Molotov cocktails were thrown at the building.
Bahrain says it has broken up a militant Shiite group backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani earlier said that “Saudi Arabia seeks to divert the public opinion from its cruel beheading of prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr through diplomatic tumult with Tehran”, and urged human rights advocates to speak up about “Riyadh’s crimes”.
Iran has banned the import of goods from Saudi Arabia after the kingdom cut diplomatic ties over attacks on the Saudi embassy following the execution of a Shiite cleric.
Fen Hampson, an worldwide security expert with Canada’s Centre for global Governance Innovation, said the rupture of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two dominant Islamic powers in the region, could escalate to direct military confrontation beyond the current proxy wars they are fighting in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
The service is being held in a village the kingdom’s predominantly Shiite eastern region.
Djibouti became the latest country to sever diplomatic relations with Iran on Wednesday.
In July previous year, Tehran agreed to measures to put a nuclear weapon beyond its reach in exchange for sanctions relief.
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In his first comments on the regional dispute, Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed suggestions that the executionsof Shiekh Nimr al-Nimr at the weekend was aimed at provoking tensions with Shia Muslims.
