Kerry condemns Indonesia attack, meets with Saudi counterpart

Several of Saudi Arabia’s Sunni allies – including Kuwait, Bahrain, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – either broke or downgraded diplomatic ties with Iran after demonstrators ravaged the Saudi embassy in Tehran.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are at a tense standoff following a prominent Shia cleric’s execution by the former on January 2.

While there are remaining obstacles to Israel developing full relations with Arab countries, the Journal observed that Gold is dedicated to “building better diplomatic, commercial and intelligence ties”.

The minister responded: “We have a fundamental difference, in your country, you do not execute people, we respect it. In our country, the death penalty is part of our laws and you have to respect this as it is the law”.

Iran has repeatedly denied the Saudi allegations of interference in the affairs of other countries.

Mashaal eventually rejected the offer from Iran, fearing that Hamas would lose its support among Sunni Arab states, the report said.

The Saudis want Pakistan to convince Iran to support the kingdom in stopping the Islamic State group from spreading out of Syria to other Gulf countries, sources said. He said Iran should “stop interfering in (the) internal affairs” of its neighbors.

According to several groups that monitor the death penalty worldwide, the kingdom executed 157 people in 2015, with beheadings reaching their highest level in two decades.

It defends its execution of shiite cleric Nimr al Nimr as the work of an independent judiciary. An Iraqi lawmaker, Haitham Al-Jubouri has declared it the beginning of the end of the royal family of Saudi. A strong alliance with the Arab monarchies that dominate the Gulf, fueled by credibility of American power, has been at the core of this policy, and this-American military credibility and steadfastness to longstanding foreign policy partnerships-is what appears to be eroding, and causing nothing short of alarm among Gulf leaders.

Li Shaoxian, vice president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, a government think-tank, said China had to step up to the plate in the Middle East, but stressed China’s role would be different from other superpowers.

Hilal Kashan is a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut.

Following an attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran, Riyadh announced it was severing all diplomatic ties with Iran. Amongst them were the repressive violations that the Iranian regime committed against the opposition and the arresting of journalists and activists. “The Saudi press at the moment is constantly writing that Iran is moving towards moderating its position, and there is talk in Iranian society that a conflict with Saudi Arabia would be a mistake”.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 15 (APP): Violent extremism is a direct assault on the United Nations Charter and a grave threat to worldwide peace and security, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday while presenting a new plan of action to prevent violence stemming from “poisonous ideologies”.