Sudan and the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain said they would sever ties with Iran, as Saudi Arabia did late Sunday. A USA official said Kerry had spoken on Sunday with the U.N special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, to gauge any impact Saudi-Iranian developments might have on the planned January 25 start of negotiations.
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The standoff began Saturday, when Saudi Arabia executed Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and 46 others convicted of terror charges – the largest mass execution carried out by the kingdom since 1980. That’s because it makes it less likely that Saudi Arabia and Iran will work together to support prices. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) also downgraded its ties with Iran.
Al-Jubeir told a news conference in Riyadh that the Iranian government has “a long record of violations of foreign diplomatic missions”, dating back to the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in 1979, and such incidents constitute “a flagrant violation of all global agreements”, according to the official Saudi Press Agency. He vowed that Saudi Arabia will not allow Iran “to undermine our security”. “We are urging all sides to show some restraint and to not further inflame tensions that are on quite vivid display in the region”, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a daily news briefing.
Sheikh Nimr had been arrested in 2012 in the Qatif region of Saudi Arabia’s Shia-majority Eastern Province, which was the scene of peaceful anti-regime demonstrations at the time.
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The hacker collective previously launched operation #OpNimr, named after Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, a young teenager who participated in public protests against the country’s leadership and tried to organize an Arab Spring-like movement.
