Kuwait yesterday joined the UAE and Bahrain in recalling its ambassador to Iran, as anger grew over the violent attacks on Riyadh’s diplomatic mission in the country.
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Iran is the leading Shia Muslim nation in the Middle East while Saudi Arabia is the leading Sunni power.
The statement follows criticism from opposition parties which lashed out at the government in the National Assembly for not coming up with a clear stance on the situation arising out in the region because of the tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran and called for a parliamentary briefing on the issue.
He spoke as the UN dispatched Syrian envoy Staffan de Mistura to Tehran and Riyadh to try to ensure the conflict does not derail negotiations scheduled for January 25, while the UN Security Council debated a statement addressing the Saudi-Iranian tensions.
On Sunday, Saudi Arabia cut off its diplomatic relations with Iran over the attacks and for what it said an Iranian intervention in its affairs.
Saudi Arabia and its allies United Arab Emirates and Bahrain severed diplomatic ties with Iran over the weekend.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threatened divine retribution for the killing of the cleric, whose only crime, he said, was criticizing the Saudi goverment.
ISIS, as the Islamic State is also known, controls territory across Iraq and Syria, and Western nations see the group’s defeat as a pivotal step toward bringing about a semblance of stability to the Middle East. Worsening relations between the region’s two most powerful Muslim nations are likely to make that more hard, though both countries ostensibly oppose ISIS.
“There is no escalation on the part of Saudi Arabia”.
In Iran, protesters attacked the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad.
Iran’s Vice President Mohammad Bagher Nobakht, addressing journalists Tuesday, said the country’s intelligence services were investigating the diplomatic mission attacks and that police officers who failed to take action to stop the assaults would be prosecuted.
The decision also comes hours after Iran’s government summoned the Saudi ambassador to Iran to condemn al-Nimr’s execution, which he refused to do.
Friction between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia – fierce regional rivals who support opposing sides in the conflicts in Syria and Yemen – was heightened by the execution of Shia cleric Nimr Baqir al-Nimr by Saudi authorities on Saturday.
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To that end intense diplomatic efforts were made a year ago during peace talks in Vienna to persuade Saudi Arabia and Iran to cooperate on arranging a ceasefire between the warring parties.
