The execution drew widespread worldwide condemnation from the religious and political figures. The Iranian foreign minister said in his letter.
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Saudi Arabia and Iran’s under-23 teams could also meet at the Asian Under-23 Championships, which start Tuesday in Qatar.
Drawing upon the companionship of some Arab states in severing or downgrading diplomatic ties with Iran, he said that some states are trying to solve their economic problems by Saudi petro-dollars or they share political interests with Riyadh.
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.
Yet it has both large Sunni and Shia Muslims populations, and is likely to want to avoid escalated tensions between Shia Iran and predominantly Sunni Saudi Arabia.
The ongoing confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, longtime powerful rivals, is further endangering regional stability, further complicating the already intricate situation in the Middle East.
“The people of Pakistan would always stand with the people of Saudi Arabia, against any threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom”, Sharif said.
Al-Jubeir also chaired a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh on Saturday to discuss Iran, and that group said it would support action to prevent Iran from “meddling in the affairs of Arab nations”. “The outrageous beheading recently of Sheikh Nimr was immediately preceded by a sermon of hatred toward Shi’ites by a Grand Mosque preacher in Mecca, who previous year said that “our disagreement with Shi’ites will not be removed, nor our suicide to fight them” as long as Shi’ites remained on the earth”.
Bin Zayed was speaking during a press conference held with his Saudi counterpart Adel Al-Jubeir and Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby following the conclusion of the Arab foreign ministers’ meeting in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.
“We have good relations both with Iran and Saudi Arabia, though we have certain well-known divergence of opinions (with Riyadh) over Syria”.
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The United Arab Emirates lowered the level of their relations with Iran to charges d’affaires and cut the number of accredited Iranian diplomats. “We hope that reason will prevail”.
