The United Nations worked quickly on Monday to salvage fragile global bids to broker peace in Syria and Yemen from a spillover of tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran after Riyadh’s decision to cut off ties with Tehran.U.N.
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Liu said the tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia were unlikely to escalate into military conflict.
The UN Security Council has condemned “in the strongest terms” the attacks against the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and its Consulate in Mashhad. In a letter to the council, the Saudi ambassador called on the council to “take all appropriate measures to ensure the inviolability of diplomatic facilities and the protection of all Saudi diplomats in Iran”.
But geopolitics could make foreign banks and investors more wary of funding Saudi Arabia, at a time when Riyadh is considering borrowing overseas to ease the pressure of funding its fiscal deficit on the domestic banking system.
When a Saudi state executioner beheaded the prominent Shiite dissident Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday, the Shiite theocracy in Iran took it as a deliberate provocation by its regional rival and dusted off its favored playbook, unleashing hard-liner anger on the streets.
Turkey’s relations with fellow mainly Sunni Muslim power Saudi Arabia have warmed considerably in recent months.
Shia power Iran accused Saudi Arabia of using the attack on the embassy as an “excuse” to sever ties and further increase sectarian tensions, after Shias across the world denounced Saudi Arabia’s execution of Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr.
Demonstrators burn US and Israeli flags in front of the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Tehran on Sunday.
In light of increasing criticism of Iran, its UN envoy sent a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon which expressed his country’s regret for the attacks which affected the Saudi diplomatic missions and vowed that they would not be repeated. Late Sunday, Saudi Arabia announced it was severing relations with Iran because of the assaults, giving Iranian diplomatic personnel 48 hours to leave.
Bahrain has halted all flights to and from Iran a day after it joined Saudi Arabia in severing diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic.
“We will attend the next Syria talks and we’re not going to boycott them because of Iran or anybody else for that matter”, said Abdullah al-Moallimi.
The Kingdom will also cut off all commercial ties with Tehran.
The tensions have sparked new worries of violence in a region already torn apart by civil wars, the rise of ISIS, and terrorism.
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By executing cleric Nimr, the authorities have appeased the kingdom’s Sunni clergy but also risk provoking the Shiite minority which has always complained of marginalisation, experts say.
