Qatar has added to growing condemnation of an attack by protestors on Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Iran by withdrawing its ambassador to the country.
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“Saudi Arabia bears responsibility for damaging the embassy and injuring its staff”, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said as quoted by state TV channel IRIB.
Often at loggerheads over regional issues, a full-blown split between Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia and Shia-dominated Iran erupted at the weekend when Riyadh executed prominent Shia cleric and activist Nimr al-Nimr along with 46 others. They are targeted by an ongoing Saudi-led military campaign on behalf of Yemen’s internationally recognized government. An Associated Press reporter who reached the Iranian Embassy in Sanaa on Thursday just after the government announcement that it had been hit saw no damage to the building.
The attack, on Wednesday night, was said to have occurred as the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen carried out its heaviest air strikes in months over Sanaa.
Iran denounced those attacks, but the repercussions quickly rippled across the region with Saudi allies Bahrain, Sudan and Djibouti also cutting diplomatic ties with Tehran.
Shiite-dominated Iran also announced a ban on imports of all products from its Sunni-ruled rival, following a dramatic chill in relations that has triggered global alarm.
Saudi Arabia broke off diplomatic ties with Iran this week after Iranian mobs attacked Saudi diplomatic compounds.
Turkey’s possible attempt to become a mediator in the normalization of Saudi Arabia-Iran relations is doomed to failure, Ahmet Tasgetiren, the columnist of the Turkish Star newspaper, the expert on foreign policy, said.
FILE – In this Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016 file photo, Iranian demonstrators burn representations of the USA and Israeli flags during a demonstration in front of the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Tehran, Iran. Speaking alongside Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, al-Jaafari said Iraq’s place in the heart of the Middle East allows it to play a role in trying to “alleviate tensions”.
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Addressing the execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr by the Saudi authorities, “Loyalty to the Resistance” parliamentary bloc on Thursday accused the Kingdom of seeking to ignite sectarian strife in the Arab peninsula and the region. The decision was made in a cabinet meeting chaired by President Hassan Rouhani, according to Iranian student news agency ISNA.
