A commander of Iran’s hard-line military group on Tuesday condemned the storming of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and its Consulate in Mashhad as an “ugly, unjustifiable act”, while the country’s president said it should not distract from Saudi Arabia’s execution of a dissident Shiite cleric.
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China has sent an envoy to Saudi Arabia and Iran amid an escalating feud, the foreign ministry said on Thursday, calling on all sides to exercise restraint.
But the accusation was viewed as signaling dangerously heightened friction after Saudi Arabia and a number of fellow Sunni-led countries severed or downgraded diplomatic relations with Iran, a Shiite-led theocracy, over the last week.
The Jordanian government stressed its condemnation “of the Iranian interference in the internal affairs of Arab states”, the Petra news agency said.
There is no firm indication that Iran’s factionalised leadership has agreed how far it should go to avenge the death of Nimr – who was one of 47 people executed by Saudi Arabia on Saturday – and what methods should be used.
The Iranian ambassador was told to relay the Jordanian position to his government immediately. On Wednesday, Iranian diplomats in Saudi Arabia returned to Tehran, according to state media.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has made repeated calls to both Iranian and Saudi leaders urging calm.
In Syria, Iran is supporting the government of President Bashar al-Assad against rebel groups, some backed by Saudi Arabia.
Yemen’s capital is held by Shiite rebels known as Houthis.
In comments published Thursday by the Economist, a British magazine, Saudi Arabia’s defense minister ruled out the possibility of war with Iran. A trade boycott would cause the kingdom little economic harm, they said, noting that imports from Iran mainly consist of pistachio nuts and pickles.
Jaafari, who was to also hold talks with Rouhani, said Iraq was seeking a potential diplomatic role to help resolve the crisis and echoed the concerns about sectarianism.
The cell was allegedly linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Lebanon’s Tehran-backed Hezbollah militia and planning a “series of risky bombings” on the tiny Gulf kingdom, the interior ministry said.
“Within the past year, we have seen of the Al Saud nothing but political incompetence”, General Salami stressed, referring to Riyadh’s mismanagement of this year’s Hajj pilgrimage – where thousands were killed during a deadly crush of pilgrims- and Saudi Arabia’s support for Takfiri terrorists in Syria and Iraq as instances of such incompetence.
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“We will inform the Security Council of the details of this attack within several hours”, he said.
