Also Monday, in a meeting with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani, called on the Saudi leadership to stop creating instability in the region by encouraging hostility toward Iran by other Islamic countries.
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Iran meanwhile accused Saudi Arabia of hurting efforts to resolve the Syrian civil war with the dispute, which has seen tensions between the Sunni and Shia regional rivals reach new heights.
Arab League Chief Nabil Elaraby said the region’s foreign ministers will discuss the “steps” they can take against Iran in future meetings over the next two months.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi had said that being an important country of the Muslim world, Pakistan could play a pivotal role to ease tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Sunday reaffirmed that the people of Pakistan would always stand with the people of Saudi Arabia against any threat to its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The statement criticized “Iranian interference” in Saudi Arabia’s affairs over its denunciation of Nimr’s execution a week ago, adding that Tehran’s criticism had “directly incited the aggressions targeting Saudi diplomatic missions”. Interestingly one of these partner countries (Yemen) is also the one that is bombed by Saudi Arabia on a daily basis.
“This has fallen on deaf ears in Saudi Arabia”, Zarif said. “In Iran I got the same assurance”, he said.
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir reiterated that Iran’s regime was interfering in Arab affairs and undermining regional security.
Zarif noted that Iran immediately condemned the violence at the Saudi embassy on January 2 and has since taken action against those who failed to protect the compound, stating a probe was under way.
After that, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Sudan and Djibouti severed diplomatic relations with Iran, demanding that Iranian diplomats leave their territory.
In Cairo, the Arab League held an emergency meeting of foreign ministers.
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The executions have sent large number of Iranians onto the street, while some of them stormed Saudi diplomatic missions in capital Tehran and the northeastern city of Mashhad.
