Washington and other Western powers have called for calm amid fears the dispute could raise sectarian tensions across the Middle East and derail efforts to resolve conflicts from Syria to Yemen.
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Sunni-Shi’ite tension in the region spilled over on Saturday night when Iranian protesters stormed the kingdom’s embassy in Tehran after Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shi’ite cleric.
Bahrain and Sudan also broke diplomatic relations with Iran, and a number of other Arab countries have recalled their envoys, in sympathy with Riyadh.
In his call with the Saudi foreign minister, the United Nations said the secretary-general “reiterated his views on capital punishment and his disappointment over the execution of Sheikh al-Nimr, whose case he had raised with the Saudi authorities on several occasions”.
Saudi Arabia on Sunday officially severed its ties with Iran, with Bahrain following in its footsteps a day after. Meanwhile, its primary rival in the region, Iran, has always been willing to leverage Shia hostility against the Saudi regime when the opportunity presents itself.
The authority said that following the kingdom’s decision to cut diplomatic relations, it had informed all airlines operating in Saudi Arabia it was “suspending and preventing all their flights to and from Iran”, according to a statement carried by state news agency SPA. Iran, a staunch supporter of embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad, and Saudi Arabia, a key backer of the opposition, have participated in three rounds of worldwide talks aimed at ending the conflict.
U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura was in Riyadh for talks and was to head later this week to Tehran to seek assurances that hard-won gains in the Syria peace process were not in jeopardy.
The spike in tensions comes after Iran a year ago secured a historic nuclear deal with world powers led by the United States, sparking major concern in longtime U.S. ally Riyadh.
The U.N. said Ban expressed his condemnation to Zarif of the attack at the Saudi embassy in Tehran and urged the foreign minister to take the necessary measures to protect diplomatic facilities in the country.
That, however, was before diplomatic ties were severed.
USA crude’s West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures were up 28 cents at Dollars 37.04 CLc1.
Gulf stocks tumbled, with six of the region’s seven exchanges down and the Saudi Tadaul All-Shares Index falling by 2.36 per cent.
Nobakht also criticised the attacks on the Saudi diplomatic missions, saying they were unbecoming of Iranians. Protesters set fire to the building following demonstrations over the killing of Nimr, who was an outspoken critic of discrimination against Saudi’s Shia minority. Some 3,000 demonstrators rallied in Tehran on Monday, chanting anti-Saudi slogans and burning U.S. and Israeli flags.
And then there is the ongoing U.S.-led military effort against ISIS inside Iraq and Syria, which likely requires involvement from both Iran and Saudi Arabia to hasten the defeat of the terrorist group – now, the two sides will not want to cooperate. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the perpetrators “targeted mosques to sow sedition and undermine national unity”.
Shiite protestors in Baghdad, Iraq, burn an effigy of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman on Monday.
Instead, “it is Saudi Arabia that will suffer”, Nobakht said.
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On Saturday, the Saudi Arabian government executed 47 people, one of whom was Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
