Iran-Saudi tensions: 6 nations label embassy attack terrorism

“The coalition command confirmed that these (Iranian) allegations are false and void, stressing that it does not carry out any operations in the vicinity of the embassy or near it”, a statement on the state Saudi news agency SPA said late yesterday.

Last weekend Riyadh executed prominent Shi’ite cleric Nimr Bakir al-Nimr unleashing a wave of anger from Shi’ite Iran against Sunni Saudi Arabia. The Shiites there held a memorial service Thursday night – not a funeral, as the sheikh’s brother has said Saudi authorities had already buried his body in an undisclosed cemetery.

Protests have erupted across the region this week in the wake of Saudi Arabia’s execution of a leading Shiite cleric. The Saudi Gazette said they were arrested in 2013 and 2014, but did not identify them. Saudi Arabia also supported Saddam Hussein’s Iraq against Iran during an eight-year war in the 1980s.

“The escalation is coming from Iran, not from Saudi Arabia or the GCC…”

Saudi officials say that by taking offense at the execution of Nimr, Tehran has demonstrated its claim of dominion over all Shias regardless of national borders, which Riyadh in turn calls a fundamental threat to the worldwide system.

“We are not after tension in the region”, the Iranian minister added. “Multiple UN sanctions-violating missile tests, the trashing of the Saudi embassy in Tehran, continued military support for Assad’s killing machine [in Syria] and the Houthi insurgents in Yemen, and a sharp increase in executions of its own citizens”. In addition, Saudi Arabia hopes to undermine the EU’s drive for rapprochement with Iran, as it otherwise has the potential of becoming the largest trading partner with the EU.

First, the United States should seek to postpone the convening of the January 25 global conference in Geneva that seeks a diplomatic solution to Syria’s civil war, in order to give Saudi Arabia and Iran a calming period as the participation of both countries is central to finding any lasting political solution in Syria.

The ministers were seen off at King Salman Air Base Airport by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir, GCC Secretary General Dr Abdullatif Al Zayani and senior officials.

Although the U.S. should continue to seek good relations with Iran, it must now conduct a balancing act to allay the concerns of its Arab allies in the Gulf while showing some toughness in relation to Iran, which in fact is needed to preserve the Iran deal and prevent another regional crisis.

“Of course, the Saudi government, in order to cover up its crime of beheading a religious leader, has resorted to a odd measure and has severed its ties with the Islamic Republic”, Rouhani said, according to Iran’s state-run Press TV.