Gulf states to meet over Iran row

In response to The Independent’s disclosure that Saudi Arabia had been omitted from a Foreign Office list of priority countries where it would encourage the abolition of the death penalty, he said: “This was a list, I understand from 2011”. “The process of provoking tension must be stopped”.

Saudi diplomatic buildings in the Iranian cities of Tehran and Mashhad were attacked and set on fire following the beheading.

After an Iranian mob attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran in protest, Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic and some commercial ties.

Iran, though, has stood its ground – even banning pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina as well as Saudi imports.

Recently, Qatar’s foreign ministry expressed displeasure at the attack on the Saudi Arabia embassy in Iran and recalled its ambassador to Iran.

The festering diplomatic crisis between the Middle East’s leading Sunni and Shiite Muslim powers has raised sectarian tensions across the region and complicated efforts to resolve conflicts in Syria and Yemen.

“He is urging calm”.

“Neither the Pakistan Army nor the nation is for rent, we will oppose any attempts to sell the Army to the house of Saud for a few billion riyals”, said Shia activist Gul-e-Zahra, addressing Friday’s rally.

RIYADH, Jan 7 The diplomatic rupture with Iran triggered by the execution of a Shi’ite cleric was probably a side effect of a decision taken by Saudi Arabia for domestic reasons, rather than the outcome of a deliberate ploy to enrage its regional opponent.

They also carried posters of the executed sheikh, Nimr al-Nimr.

“We have never sought to create tension”.

This week has seen several sectarian attacks in Iraq as the row escalated, including the bombings of two Sunni mosques, raising fears the country could plunge back into all-out civil conflict.

“The Iranians were going to look for opportunities to demonstrate to their own constituents they are not cowed and contained”, said Tamara Cofman Wittes, a senior State Department official during Obama’s first term and now the director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Nouri al-Maliki, the Shiite former prime minster of Iraq, declared the Saudi regime would be “toppled” for its actions.

Trudeau has also been advised to anticipate the easing of possible sanctions against Iran in the coming months if progress is made on implementing last year’s landmark nuclear agreement between Tehran and six countries, including the United States – a prospect that seemed imminent on Thursday. “We are both members of the G20 but we have very little trade, very little investment and so we wanted to change that”, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said during an interview with CNBC.

The storming of the missions followed Saudi Arabia’s execution last week of a top Shiite cleric who was also an opposition figure.

He was arrested in 2012 after calling for two Saudi governorates to be separated from the kingdom.