Riyadh also urged the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to convene an emergency meeting to discuss the Iranian attacks on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, reported Arab News.
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It was set on fire by a crowd angry over the execution of prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr by Saudi Arabia.
“Saudi Arabia’s approach is to create tension meant to negatively affect the Syrian crisis”.
Zarif said the execution of cleric Nimr al-Nimr had shown that Saudi Arabia’s “barbarism is clear” and said Riyadh was promoting the kind of extremist views taken up by groups like the Islamic State organisation.
Meanwhile, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir Abdollahian said in Tehran’s first response that by cutting diplomatic ties, Riyadh could not cover up “its major mistake of executing Sheikh Nimr”.
Instead of the parliament, the sources said, the government made a decision to hold an in-camera briefing over the issue to members of the foreign affairs committee at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In separate statements on its website on Monday, China’s Foreign Ministry said Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Ming met senior Saudi and Iranian officials on his trip.
It’s been four years since the government’s last country report on Saudi Arabia’s human rights record was done in 2011.
The extraordinary meeting of Arab League foreign ministers was conveyed at the request of Saudi Arabia, whose diplomatic missions in Iran were attacked. It said Pakistan also expressed its readiness to offer its offices to brotherly Muslim countries for resolution of their differences through peaceful dialogue and reconciliation. And he went further: “Iranian pilgrims in Saudi Arabia have endured systematic harassment – in one case, Saudi airport officers molested two Iranian boys in Jeddah, fueling public outrage”, Zarif wrote.
The United Arab Emirates lowered the level of their relations with Iran to charges d’affaires and cut the number of accredited Iranian diplomats.
Rahmani Fazli who was responding to a reporter’s question storming of Saudi embassy in Tehran, raised a new perspective and interpretation of the embassy attack, believing some analysts would not reject the possibility.
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Observers expect more dismissals in the security forces in Tehran after two security officials were dismissed against the backdrop of attacks on Saudi diplomatic interests.
