Saudi severs ties with Iran

In response to attacks on its diplomatic missions, Saudi has ordered all Iranian diplomats to leave the country within 48 hours.

Saudi Arabia is the biggest producer in the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, while Iran is also a key member, and there are concerns that their diplomatic spat could lead to a disruption in oil supplies.

On Monday, state news agency WAM said the Emirates ambassador in Tehran had been recalled and the number of diplomats across the conutry would also be reduced.

Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi Embassy in Tehran early on Sunday morning as Shi’ite Muslim Iran reacted with fury to Saudi Arabia’s execution of a prominent Shi’ite cleric.

The Saudi kingdom’s decision last week to execute an outspoken Shiite cleric and government critic, Sheik Nimr al-Nimr, along with 46 other dissidents and militants, apparently caught Washington by surprise.

The UN Security Council on Monday condemned “in the strongest terms” the attacks against the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, and its consulate general in Mashhad, which resulted in serious damage and intrusions into the diplomatic and consular premises.

Saudi Arabia’s allies are rallying against Iran, amid a diplomatic row over the execution of dozens of Saudi Shi’ites.

Relations between the two rivals have been testy, but the furor over the Saudi execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, who had criticized the Sunni royal family, threatened to spill over.

The most recent, which seems to have added a spiteful twist to the ongoing Sunni-Shiite struggle across the Middle East, places Saudi Arabia and Iran in the forefront. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and others spent significant time trying to bring the countries to the negotiating table and they both sat together at talks aimed at ending the civil war. “We are urging all sides to show some restraint and to not further inflame tensions that are on quite vivid display in the region”, Earnest said.

In Baghdad on Monday, demonstrators carrying portraits of Nimr rallied outside the Green Zone, a heavily fortified district that houses government departments and diplomatic representations, including the newly reopened Saudi embassy.

“We urge Saudi Arabian authorities and local and regional leaders, including those in Iran, to work with all communities to defuse these tensions and promote reconciliation”, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion said in a statement Sunday. Past year it joined Saudi Arabia’s coalition against the Tehran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, sending troops to join the campaign to restore Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, Riyadh’s ousted ally.