Oil prices rebound in Asia as Saudi-Iran row deepens

Kuwait on Tuesday recalled its ambassador to Iran, becoming the latest Arab country to side with Saudi Arabia in its fight with Tehran.

While Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has denounced the attacks on the Saudi embassy, he pointed the finger at Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, saying that it should not divert attention from its execution of the dissident Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

THE escalating standoff between Iran and Saudi Arabia may raise instability in the Middle East, but it will probably not become a direct military confrontation, experts and diplomats say.

On the other hand, by executing a Shiite leader and enraging all the Shiites, Saudi Arabia showed it is seeking to control the Gulf – one that in the eye of Saudi Arabia can’t be a Persian gulf.

Saudi Arabia said it would restore ties with Iran when Tehran stopped meddling in the affairs of other countries and pledged that Riyadh would continue to work “very hard” to support bids for peace in Syria and Yemen despite the spat. “I think there is an attempt from Turkey, and from Saudi Arabia, to move ahead on the plan so they can have a unified political body that can represent Syria and then they move on to the second phase”.

Analysts said however that the impact of geopolitical risks in the Middle East on the oil market is being cushioned by the oversupply and higher output from oil producers in other parts of the world.

Iran has called on OPEC producers, especially both Saudi Arabia and Iraq, to curb supply to accommodate its new volumes, arguing that its production was artificially curtailed by years of sanctions over its controversial atomic program.

The deputy head of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) told Saudi Arabia on Thursday it would “collapse” in coming years if it kept pursuing what he called its sectarian policies in the region. Tiny Kuwait is home to both Shiites and Sunnis living in peace and has the most free-wheeling political system among all Gulf nations.

Matthiesen said he assumes they executed al-Nimr as a way of shoring up support among Sunnis, and particularly among the large segment of Saudis that feel sympathetic to ISIL or to a general anti-Shiite and anti-Iran policy in the region.

But Kazem Jalali, a prominent Iranian lawmaker, criticized the actions of the protesters as, in the words of the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency, “wrong and impulsive”.

Although the United States, too, has somehow expressed its disapproval of the Saudi government’s act, the strategies of the Saudis are clear: to hamper Iran’s return to the global arena step by step.

The catalyst for the elevated tensions between the two oil producers was Saudi Arabia’s weekend execution of 48 suspected al-Qaeda terrorists. For an organization deeply involved in wars in Syria and Iraq this looks no idle threat, at least in the eyes of Sunni Gulf Arab states like Saudi Arabia who say Shi’ite rival Tehran is bent on undermining their security.

He added that Canada is particularly concerned that the kingdom’s execution of Sheikh Nimr could “further inflame” sectarian tensions in the Middle East.

The storming of the missions followed Saudi Arabia’s execution last week of a top Shiite cleric who was also an opposition figure.

World powers have sought to calm the tensions.

The state-owned SUNA agency says Sudan’s foreign affairs ministry summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires in the Sudanese capital to inform the mission that the diplomats have two weeks at the most to leave.