Kuwait summons ambassador in Iran over Saudi embassy attack

At the heart of the new crisis is Saudi Arabia’s growing willingness to confront Iran and its allies militarily since King Salman took power a year ago, say diplomats, choosing with his son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to abandon years of backroom politics.

Though thousands of Iraqi Shias took to the streets on Tuesday to protest the execution of Nimr al-Nimr, Baghdad has taken a more cautious line.

Saudi rulers “can’t be seen as backing down, and that’s not because it’s necessarily giving the region away to Iran”, Davidson said. Protesters gathered in the afternoon in front of the embassy, at which point Saudi officials local in Tehran wired the Iranian government, asking for protection as soon as possible. “There is nothing the Saudis can do to destabilise Iran whereas the Iranians on the other hand have every means conceivable to destabilise Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, namely Bahrain”.

There are about 800,000 Filipinos employed in Saudi Arabia and more than 4,000 in Iran. Saudi Arabia has severed diplomatic ties with Iran amid a dispute over Riyadh’s execution of an opposition Shiite cleric. The ISNA news agency reported that Jaafari was making efforts to “advance dialogue and have a diplomatic role in preventing efforts to create discord”, so that the region could “pass its current challenge”.

In addition, Saudi Arabia sought to undermine the thaw in relations between Iran and the United States, as well as put an end to the Iranian nuclear deal. The executions prompted condemnations from around the world, but in Iran protestors threw Molotov cocktails at Saudi Arabia’s embassy, setting fire to the building.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s civil war had poured fuel on growing sectarian tensions as al Qaeda, which follows an extreme form of Salafism, sent suicide bombers against Shi’ite civilians, prompting murderous retaliation from Iran-linked militias.

He said the kingdom’s ‘security…is an integral part of Egypt’s security’. “We invite these two countries to stay calm and to focus on what is really important, and it is to fight the terrorist group the so-called Islamic State”.

“The Secretary-General reiterated that the attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran was deplorable, but added that the announcement of a break in Saudi diplomatic relations with Tehran was deeply worrying”, Dujarric told reporters. US stocks opened sharply lower Monday, and Asian markets plunged on a mix of worries over the Middle East impasse and weak Chinese manufacturing data.

There is no firm indication that Iran’s factionalised leadership has agreed how far it should go to avenge the death of Nimr – who was one of 47 people executed by Saudi Arabia on Saturday – and what methods should be used. Want to try to get your arms around the complexities of a crisis that is likely to be with us for some time to come?

Bahrain and Sudan also severed relations with Iran on Monday, and the UAE has downgraded its diplomatic team.

Bilateral trade between Iran and Saudi Arabia reached $172.5 million (159.7 million euros) during the first eight months of the Iranian year that began on March 20, 2015.

“I think the Iranians think they can actually have a victory in Bahrain which would be a red line for the Saudis”, said a Western diplomat in Beirut who asked not to be identified.

Professor Azyumardi Azra, supervisory board member at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University’s Centre for the Study of Islam and Society, said: “Indonesia will be accepted by these two countries because it’s very hard for them to accept other parties to be a mediating power, say U.S. or European Union which can not be accepted particularly by Iran”.