Saudi Arabia cuts diplomatic ties with Iran

Saudi police were shot at late last night in the home village of executed Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, the country’s official SPA news agency said.

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti on Monday reported that Moscow is ready to act as a mediator between Saudi Arabia and Iran, citing an unnamed diplomat.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister announced Sunday that the country is immediately severing all ties with Iran and that all diplomats now in the Middle Eastern nation in the have 48 hours to leave.

Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest oil exporter while Iran, which has some of the biggest proven reserves, hopes to ramp up exports following an expected lifting of sanctions against it after reaching a deal over its alleged nuclear weapons development programme.

Iran’s supreme leader has said Saudi politicians will face “divine vengeance” for killing the cleric.

Iraq, whose Shi’ite-led government is close to Iran, religious and political figures have demanded that ties with Riyadh be severed, calling into question Saudi attempts to forge a regional alliance against ISIL militants which controls swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Saturday’s executions have placed the UK’s links with the Arab kingdom under increasing scrutiny, with Shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn and Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron demanding prime minister David Cameron speak out against the Saudi regime’s actions.

At the same time Saudi Arabia’s Sunni allies backed Riyadh.

Asked at the press conference what other steps the Saudis would take against Iran, Jubeir said “we will cross each bridge when we will get to it”. However, the 49-year-old has strongly denied the charges, emphasizing that he has been seeking reforms in the kingdom through peaceful means.

In Baghdad on Monday, demonstrators carrying portraits of Nimr rallied outside the Green Zone, a heavily fortified district that houses government departments and diplomatic representations, including the newly reopened Saudi embassy.

Manama also condemned the Saturday night attack by protesters on the Saudi embassy in Tehran. In a symbolic move, Iranian authorities renamed the street on which the embassy sits after al-Nimr.

On Saturday, the Saudi Interior Ministry announced that Sheikh Nimr had been put to death along with 46 others who were convicted of being involved in “terrorism”. Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran heightened after the Sunni Muslim kingdom executed a top Shiite cleric despite several warnings from Iran.

The crowd was decrying the execution of al-Nimr, a prominent Saudi Shia cleric, by Saudi authorities – an execution which has heightened sectarian tensions in the region.

Both crude benchmarks headed steeply higher on the first trading day of 2016, lifted by a worsening of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran, with traders cheering also a fall of the United States dollar. In al-Daih, west of the capital, Shiite protesters chanted against Saudi Arabia’s ruling Al Saud family, as well as against Bahrain’s ruling Al Khalifa family.

Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called the execution “an injustice and an aggression”.

Hossein Amir Abdollahian also accused Saudi Arabia of promoting terrorism and extremism in the Middle East.