After Saudi Arabia, Bahrain also severs diplomatic ties with Iran

Saudi Arabia used an attack on its embassy in Tehran as a pretext to fuel tensions, Iran’s foreign ministry said on Monday after Riyadh severed diplomatic relations.

It said the UAE was doing this due to “Iran’s continued interference in the Gulf and Arab countries internal affairs”.

Protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran late on Saturday, setting fire to the building before being driven back by police. Saudi Arabia is the dominant Sunni Muslim power in the Middle East, while Iran is led by Shiites. Demonstrators who had massed at the embassy gates to protest against cleric Nimr’s execution broke into the embassy and started fires before being cleared away by the police, Iran’s ISNA news agency reported.

Human Rights Watch said the mass execution was the largest since 1980, and called it a “shameful start to 2016”, while Amnesty International said Riyadh was using Nimr’s execution “to settle political scores”.

Who was Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr?

He also accused Iran of providing protection for Al-Qaeda through weapon trafficking.

Ayatollah Khamenei condemned Sheikh al-Nimr’s execution, saying the cleric “neither invited people to take up arms nor hatched covert plots”.

The Saudi foreign ministry also announced that the staff of its diplomatic mission had been evacuated and were on their way back to the kingdom.

The massive outrage was visible among the people as they took to the streets in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and in Bahrain and Baghdad, hours after the Saudi embassy in Tehran was set ablaze by protesters.

According to Michael Stephens, director of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in Qatar, the souring of relations between Saudi and Iran puts Doha in a tricky place, given its “intimate” relationship with the kingdom and its business ties to Tehran.

Meanwhile Sudan said Monday it is cutting diplomatic relations with Iran as well amid mounting tensions between Riyadh and Tehran over the execution of a cleric.

The safety and dignity of diplomatic personnel should be guaranteed, Hua said.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said that by condemning the execution, Iran had “revealed its true face represented in support for terrorism”.

Despite condemning the executions, Rouhani also decried the attacks on the embassy, calling for the arrests of those responsible.

The cleric had railed against Saudi Arabia. He vowed that Saudi Arabia will not allow Iran “to undermine our security”.