Saudi-led coalition denies hitting Iranian embassy in Sanaa

Analysts have feared the dispute could boil over into the proxy wars between the two Mideast rivals in Yemen and in Syria.

A spokesman for the Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Jaber Ansari, “strongly condemned the Saudi aircraft missile attack on Iran’s embassy in Sana, ” which he said caused damage to the building and wounded guards, the ILNA news agency reported.

Residents and witnesses in Sanaa said there was no damage to the embassy building in Hadda district. Saudi officials have even claimed that Iranian military commanders are on the ground there, helping to direct the Houthis.

Turkey summoned Iran’s ambassador on Thursday to demand a halt to Iranian media reports linking the execution of a Shiite cleric by Saudi Arabia with last week’s visit to Riyadh by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Nimr was an outspoken government critic and an advocate for Saudi Shia, who form a majority in the kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province and complain of discrimination and mistreatment.

Earlier, Saudi Arabia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Abdullah al-Moallem said that relations with Iran will be restored only when Tehran stops “interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, including that of Saudi Arabia’s”.

Iran also announced that a ban on Iranians travelling to the Saudi holy city of Mecca for the year-round minor pilgrimage, known as the umrah, would remain in place indefinitely.

Iran’s annual exports to Saudi Arabia are worth about US$130 million a year and are mainly steel, cement and agricultural products.

Iran denounced those attacks, but the repercussions quickly rippled across the region with Saudi allies Bahrain, Sudan and Djibouti also cutting diplomatic ties with Tehran. Soon after, other Sunni-ruled countries followed suit and also cut ties with Iran.

“Further deepening of strategic relations with the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries would serve Canadian commercial and possibly security interests, ” the memo states, pointing to Saudi Arabia as the leading player in the six-country bloc that includes the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.

Thousands of worshippers who took part in Friday prayers in Tehran joined the rally, carrying pictures of al-Nimr and chanting “Death to Al Saud”, referencing the kingdom’s royal family.

There are concerns new unrest could erupt. It wasn’t a funeral, as the sheikh’s brother has said Saudi authorities had already buried his body in an undisclosed cemetery. It said the decision came during an emergency meeting of the Cabinet of President Hassan Rouhani.

In response to these events, Saudi Arabia has severed diplomatic ties with Iran.