Tensions between Saudia Arabia, the Middle East’s main Sunni Muslim state, and Shi’ite Muslim Iran, reached boiling point when Riyadh executed Shi’ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr on January 2, 2016.
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Even as many Arab countries recalled envoys to Iran and the United Arab Emirates downgraded relations in solidarity with Saudi Arabia, China sent vice foreign minister Zhang Ming to Saudi Arabia and Iran for an exchange of views, said Chinese foreign ministry last week.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said cutting commercial and diplomatic ties was a first step, and that his country would discuss potential further actions against Iran with its regional and global allies.
The Cabinet condemned the attacks, destruction, burning and looting at the kingdom’s embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad, noting that the attacks came after Iranian aggressive regime’s comments which formed a blatant incitement that encouraged attacks on the missions and represented a flagrant violation of all worldwide agreements, charters and treaties.
On Sunday the Arab League said Iran s reaction to the executions was “flagrant interference” in Saudi affairs.
As news of the execution broke, angry protesters marched on the Saudi embassy in Tehran.
The Syrian government told de Mistura on Saturday it was ready to take part in Geneva talks but stressed the need to see the names of the Syrian opposition figures who will take part.
Differences between Saudi Arabia and Iran complicate the resolution of the Syrian problem, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with the German newspaper Bild.
It includes Iran, Syria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia – all now at war with each other in proxy forms. But the recording contained a footnote indicating that it was carried out by Shi’ite youth seeking to avenge the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a vocal critic of the kingdom’s Sunni Muslim monarchy. “In Iran I got the same assurance”, he said.
He was responding to certain queries regarding media reports about an in-camera briefing to the National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs by Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz.
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Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif railed at Saudi Arabia’s “barbarism” and support for “extremism” in a New York Times op-ed published Sunday, the latest blow in an escalating feud between the two Gulf states.
