Qatar recalled its ambassador to Iran on Wednesday, state news agency QNA said, after allies Saudi Arabia and Bahrain cut their ties with Tehran following attacks on Saudi missions by Iranian protesters.
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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region-Turkey has demanded that Iran stop linking Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the execution of Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr by Saudi Arabia last Saturday.
Since then, Iranians have attacked several embassies in Tehran, including those of Kuwait in 1987, Saudi Arabia in 1988, Denmark in 2006 and Britain in 2011, most of which have led to a breach in diplomatic relations.
Meanwhile, Iraq dispatched its foreign minister to Tehran on Wednesday with an offer to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Each nation is part of the Syria peace talks, which recently established a firm timetable for a political transition in the war-torn country.
Further ratcheting up tensions between the two Persian Gulf adversaries, Iran Thursday accused Saudi Arabia of deliberately carrying out an airstrike on its embassy in Yemen and wounding its staff at the site.
Rouhani requested that the file involving those accused of setting fire to the embassy, as well as others detained after a similar attack on Saudi Arabia’s consulate in the second city of Mashhad, be acted on immediately. Shia-dominated areas in eastern Saudi Arabia, the home of al-Nimr, held a three-day mourning period for the cleric.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Hossein Jaberi Ansari slammed the Saudi Government for the Yemen provocation.
The Saudi-led coalition denied the claims.
But local residents and an Associated Press reporter on the ground say that while dozens of new airstrikes fell on Sanaa today (Jan. 7), there is no visible damage to the embassy’s building.
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Its ruler, Sultan Qaboos, orchestrated secret US-Iran contacts that began in Muscat in 2012, leading to the first formal talks between the United States and Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, paving the way for July’s nuclear deal.
