“This trend of creating tension must stop”.
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Often at loggerheads over regional issues, a full-blown split between Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia and Shia-dominated Iran erupted at the weekend when Riyadh executed prominent Shia cleric and activist Nimr al-Nimr along with 46 others.
Bahrain, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan and Egypt have moved to support Saudi Arabia in recent days, while Syria’s president Bashar Assad and Iraq’s Shiite-led government have pledged support to Iran.
The United Nations has urged both sides to reduce tensions. “Today, we can’t do anything except supplication to God to restore our rights from the tyrants”.
Vali Nasr, a Middle East scholar and dean of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., joined NPR’s “Morning Edition” today to discuss the deteriorating relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
A Saudi-led coalition has been bombing Yemen since March, in an attempt to repel the Shia rebel Houthi movement, which is allied with Iran.
Supporters of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr protest against the execution of Shi’ite Muslim cleric Nimr al-Nimr in Saudi Arabia, during a demonstration in Najaf, Iraq January 4, 2016. Now that Obama has emboldened Iran by giving it billions of dollars and dropping sanctions, Saudi Arabia must ensure its own peace. Late Sunday, Saudi Arabia announced it was severing relations with Iran because of the assaults.
Pakistan is an ally of Saudi Arabia and the two countries share close economic and defence ties.
The Iraqi government was trying to walk a middle line between Iran and the Arab countries in order to keep the momentum on the campaign against Islamic State, said Mona Alami, a Beirut-based analyst at the Atlantic Center think-tank. The war has exacerbated hunger and disease in Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country.
Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Al-Jarallah said the ambassador was handed a memorandum that condemned the attacks and called for Iran to “respect its global obligations”, according to the official KUNA news agency. Other countries have downgraded their ties to Iran.
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He also added that his brother, who was arrested in July 2012 after allegedly leading mass protests against Saudi authorities in the kingdom’s eastern Qatif province, had been executed together with al-Qaeda recruits who had been involved in terrorism in and outside the kingdom.
