A spokeswoman for Cameron would not confirm that a trip to Saudi Arabia had been planned or delayed due to Nimr’s execution. News of his execution has sparked Shiite protests from Bahrain to Pakistan.
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In short order, demonstrators stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran and Saudi Arabia responded by cutting diplomatic relations with Iran, a move followed by several Saudi allies. Al-Azhar, the Cairo-based seat of Sunni Muslim learning, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Saudi Arabia, condemned the attacks on Riyadh’s missions and stressed Tehran’s obligation to respect the internal affairs of the kingdom. Late Sunday, Saudi Arabia announced it was severing relations with Iran because of the assaults.
“I think the Iranians think they can actually have a victory in Bahrain which would be a red line for the Saudis”, said a Western diplomat in Beirut who asked not to be identified.
The document, for 2010-2015, said countries considered a priority are selected for reasons including where the Government would most like to see change.
Dubai also restricted its diplomatic ties with Iran following the Riyadh’s statement which said that kingdom has cut off its diplomatic ties with Tehran.
Iraq’s foreign minister offered Wednesday to act as a mediator between its neighbors Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Iraq’s Interior Ministry said three Sunni mosques were attacked with bombs overnight in the Shiite majority province of Babil south of Baghdad, in one sign of the rising tensions. Relations between Riyadh and Tehran have been tense ever since the Islamic Republic of Iran was established in the revolution of 1979, adding religious competition to a burgeoning geopolitical rivalry. In October, Bahrain ordered the acting Iranian charge d’affaires to leave within 72 hours and recalled its own ambassador after alleging that Iran sponsored “subversion” and “terrorism” and funneled arms to militants.
In addition to Kerry, other senior US diplomats were in close contact with Saudi and Arab officials over the weekend, according to the USA officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the delicate diplomacy.
In Yemen, meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has spent the best part of a year leading a multinational coalition of Arab states in an air campaign to crush a rebellion by Shia Houthi separatists, who have driven the country’s leaders into exile – and whom the Saudis are convinced receive support from Iran. When Iran makes good on its obligations, most of the assets now in foreign banks will be unfrozen, giving the regime a windfall of tens of billions of dollars.
Reprieve has also questioned why Saudi Arabia was absent from the list of priority countries in the now-defunct death penalty strategy, despite the inclusion of the other most prolific executioners – Iran, Iraq, China, Pakistan and the US – as well as a number of other countries, such as Jordan and Morocco, which execute at a far lower rate.
In April, the Washington Post quoted a top Iranian commander, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, musing that the Saudi monarchy was “teetering on the edge of collapse” after its intervention in Yemen.
Iran’s willingness to allow, or at least to fail to prevent, the sacking of the Saudi Embassy in Teheran has left it more isolated at a time when the implementation of the nuclear agreement should have bucked up its status.
World powers have sought to calm the tensions.
The U.N. envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, was en route to Riyadh on Monday with plans to later visit Tehran.
Saudi-Iranian tensions threaten to derail efforts to end Syria’s five-year-old civil war in which Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies back rebel groups against Iranian-backed President Bashar Al Assad. Mr De Mistura has set a target date of January 25 for a fourth round of talks.
The Syrian conflict is now a central arena in the wider struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran. “It was very hard to get everybody around the table”, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “It is so clearly in the interests of both countries to advance a political solution to the situation inside of Syria”.
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Hill staffers briefed on the issue said that the State Department had intervened at the last minute, following objections by the Iranian government.
