Iran accuses Saudi Arabia of bombing its embassy in Yemen

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that a number of guards at the embassy were injured, and part of the building’s wall was damaged in the strike by Saudi warplanes Wednesday night.

Tehran accused Riyadh of conducting an airstrike on the Iranian embassy in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.

“We have treated these actions with magnanimity and nobleness but unfortunately our neighbor, Saudi Arabia did not respond to it”, Zarif said, speaking alongside his Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jafaari in the Iranian capital on Wednesday.

The Prime Minister has been accused of squandering almost £400 million in taxpayers’ aid to Yemen through its support for the Saudi-led military offensive in the country’s civil war.

While Riyadh sees the Houthis as a proxy for bitter regional rival Iran to expand its influence, the Houthis deny this and say they are fighting a revolution against a corrupt government and Gulf Arab powers beholden to the West.

“The intentional act of the Saudi government was a violation of all global conventions and regulations about protecting the security and safety of diplomatic missions in all situations”, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaber-Ansari said Thursday, according to IRNA.

Staffan de Mistura said after his meeting with Adel al-Jubeir in Riyadh that there was a “clear determination” on the Saudi side the tensions with Iran would not have any negative impact on efforts to end the five-year-old conflict in Syria UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in NY.

The tensions put the Obama administration in an awkward position as it works for a closer relationship with Iran at the risk of alienating Saudi Arabia, one of its most trusted allies in the region.

Meanwhile, a number of countries – including the U.S., the U.K., China and Turkey – urged both Saudi Arabia and Iran to show restraint amid the ongoing row. Condemning the move, protesters took to the streets in Iran, the biggest Shiite country, and attacked the Saudi embassy.

Besides import ban, the Iranian cabinet also reaffirmed a ban on pilgrims travelling to Mecca for Umrah haj.

Meanwhile, the Saudi deputy crown prince, widely thought to wield considerable power in the monarchy, said he didn’t believe war would break out with Iran. Shia-dominated areas in eastern Saudi Arabia, the home of al-Nimr, held a three-day mourning period for the cleric.

Supporters of Shiah cleric Moqtada al-Sadr protest against the execution of Shiah Muslim cleric Nimr al-Nimr in Saudi Arabia, during a demonstration in Najaf, Iraq January 4, 2016.