His language pointed to the hard position facing the administration.
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Iran and Saudi Arabia have had tense diplomatic relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, although there have been occasional thaws.
He said Riyadh would attend upcoming talks on Syria, but took a swipe at Iran’s role in the almost five-year war there, saying: “They have been taking provocative and negative positions… and I don’t think the break in relations is going to dissuade them from such behaviour”. The royal family in Saudi Arabia is Sunni.
However, he added that might change “given the situation in the Middle East is very fluid”. As Marc Lynch notes in Monday’s Washington Post, “No Shiite cleric of comparable stature has been executed [by the Saudis] in years”.
The impact of the tensions is limited because the oil market remains oversupplied, Macquarie Group Ltd. analysts including Vikas Dwivedi said in a note.
The latest friction comes at a key moment for both states.
Some 3,000 demonstrators gathered for a new rally in Tehran on Monday, chanting anti-Saudi slogans and burning United States and Israeli flags. “Yemen is certainly the most obvious example of the Saudis and others challenging the Iranians on this strategy”. But Mr. Hosseini, who is himself involved in talks with Iran oil buyers, said, “Iran will come back to Europe”, possibly by offering better credit terms and by bartering oil for goods.
Staffan de Mistura says in a statement released Tuesday that there is “a clear determination on the Saudi side” that the regional tensions will not affect the political process that is expected to begin January 25 in Geneva. Iran and Saudi Arabia use the proxy wars to assert themselves as the dominant force in the region. Assad is an Alawite, which is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
In Shiite-majority Iraq, top cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani called Al Nimr’s execution “an unjust act of aggression”, and on Monday blasts rocked two Sunni mosques in the centre of the country, wounding at least three people. Although the country was replaced in the market by Saudi Arabia and other countries such as Russia, Tehran is counting on rekindling those ties when it resumes exports.
The Interior Ministry in Baghdad confirmed the attacks late Sunday in Hilla, around 60 miles south of Baghdad, which Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi blamed on “Daesh (Islamic State) and those who are similar to them”.
Brent crude prices LCOc1 were up 18 cents at $36.60 a barrel, after closing down 80 cents. “It is very unlikely that Ankara will want to ruffle the feathers of its second-largest gas supplier, Iran, at this point”, Han told Middle East Eye.
“We just need to look back at the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988”. The country could meet the targets as soon as this month, which would trigger “implementation day”, meaning many sanctions would be lifted and Iran would start to get some $100 billion in oil revenues that has been withheld.
This has prompted critics of the nuclear pact to renew their objections. They may not be in a position to derail it. But even if the agreement stays on track, it may not build confidence if other disputes in the region keep tensions running high. But if that doesn’t happen, the deal could then be blamed for ongoing problems.
Apart from chastising Iran for not providing sufficient protection for foreign diplomatic missions on its territory, he also criticised the Saudis for political executions, keeping Ankara on the same page as its Western and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies.
The Foreign Office defended not including Saudi Arabia, where 47 alleged terrorists were executed at the weekend, on a list of priority countries where it would encourage the abolition of the death penalty.
In Iran, hardliners are preparing for parliamentary elections next month against moderates allied with President Hassan Rouhani.
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The White House and State Department both appealed to Riyadh and Tehran to show restraint and avoid further exacerbating the rift between Sunni-led Saudi Arabia and Shiite-ruled Iran.
