An angry mob broke into the embassy on Saturday night and started fires following protests against the kingdom’s execution of cleric Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent critic of Saudi policy, and three other Shi’ite Muslims as well as 43 Sunni al Qaeda jihadists.
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If the crisis rages, it will affect all nations, the Iraqi diplomat warned.
Iran’s president said on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia can not “cover up” its crime of executing a leading Shiite cleric by severing diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic, even as the kingdom’s allies began limiting their links to his country. “Morocco relies on the wisdom of the Saudi and Iranian officials to prevent the current situation from spreading to other countries in the region already facing many challenges and multiple elements of fragility” the Moroccan government said on Sunday. Saudi exported 10.2 million barrels of crude oil per day in November ($96 per barrel) while Iran produced 2.9 million barrels per day that month ($70 per barrel).
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Tuesday said Turkey was ready to do everything it could to help calm flaring tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, after Ankara expressed alarm over the consequences of the dispute between two key Muslim powers for the region.
The Saudi government said the execution was within the ambit of the Islamic jurisprudence and that those executed were terrorists and not mere criminals.
It’s not clear whether al-Nimr was beheaded with a sword, though Saudis routinely use that form of execution.
But there is one place it is not cutting back: It allocated $57 billion in defense spending for 2016. A vocal opponent of the Saudi royal family, al-Nimr was seen by Shiites in the region as a political dissident, although he always contended he did not foment violence.
The intensified Saudi-Iranian tensions could doom the multilateral talks launched by the US and Russian Federation in Vienna last month aimed at pushing a plan to end Syria’s civil war.
UNITED KINGDOM – Britain and Iran reopened their respective embassies in 2015, four years after hard-line protesters stormed the British embassy in Tehran.
The new crisis has had the effect of hardening a wider confrontation between the loose-knit coalitions of allies each can call upon in the region; some of Riyadh’s allies also cut diplomatic ties with Tehran after the embassy attack, while Iran’s warned of repercussions.
In Syria, Iran is supporting the government of President Bashar al-Assad against rebel groups, some backed by Saudi Arabia.
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In response, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari says his country is committed to protecting diplomatic missions and reiterated that no Saudi diplomats were harmed during the attacks. Saudi ambassador Abdallah al-Mouallimi had earlier urged the council to “take all appropriate measures to ensure the inviolability of diplomatic facilities and the protection of all Saudi diplomats in Iran”.
