Iran accuses Saudi Arabia of hitting embassy in Yemen air strike

Iran accused Saudi Arabia on Thursday of deliberately launching an airstrike on its embassy in Yemen’s capital Sanaa.

A foreign ministry official, who wanted to remain anonymous, told euronews that the dispute between Saudi Arabia and Iran does not require intervention by a third party, and, if necessary, the two countries will negotiate directly with each other.

Coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri said Iran’s claims would be investigated.

Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, is held by Shiite rebels known as Houthis.

It also criticized attacks on two Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.

Tension between U.S.-backed Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia and Shiite-led Iran has already hit fever-pitch in the wake of the Saudis’ execution of a prominent Shiite cleric, and the violent backlash against that killing in Iran and other Shiite enclaves.

Also on Thursday, Iran banned all products from Saudi Arabia and said a ban on Iranians travelling to the Saudi holy city of Mecca for the umrah pilgrimage would remain in place “until further notice”.

Saudi Arabia this week cut the February price of its export oil to Europe to win market share at Iran’s expense, Zarif pointed out. On Friday, the state-run Saudi Press Agency said that a man complained of being kidnapped at gunpoint by a gang and beaten in eastern Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis say they are fighting a revolution against a corrupt government and Gulf Arab powers beholden to the West. Almost 6,000 people have died in the nine-month conflict, nearly half of them civilians. State media in Iran showed still photographs it said were of the diplomats arriving in Tehran on a Meraj Airlines jet. The decision was made in a cabinet meeting chaired by president Hassan Rouhani, it said.

Tensions between Shi’ite Muslim power Iran and the conservative Sunni kingdom have spiralled since Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, an opponent of the ruling dynasty who demanded greater rights for Saudi Arabia’s marginalised Shi’ite minority.