Iran president criticizes Saudi Arabia over severing ties

“The criminal cowardly attacks on the embassy of Saudi Arabia in Tehran and its consulate in the city of Mashhad constitute a flagrant violation of both worldwide conventions and treaties and embody the very unsafe sectarian policies that can not be ignored or accepted”, Bahrain’s ministry said.

Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni Muslim power in the Middle East, and Shiite power Iran have long competed for influence in the region.

On Monday, Bahrain announced it would sever ties with Iran, while Sudan expelled the Iranian ambassdor from the country. Saudi authorities have also called off air traffic to Iran in yet another measure against the country after protesters stormed its embassy building in Tehran on Saturday and set it on fire.

Iran lashed out again at Saudi Arabia for the execution yesterday, with President Hassan Rouhani accusing Riyadh of seeking to “cover its crime” by severing ties.

Some 3,000 people took to the streets of Tehran on Monday for a third day, chanting slogans against Saudi Arabia’s ruling royal family.

“The members of the Security Council recalled the fundamental principle of the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises, and the obligations on host governments … to prevent any disturbance of the peace of these missions or impairment of their dignity”, the 15-member body said in a statement. It’s been some time coming: The two countries are on opposite sides of the civil war in Yemen, where the Saudis support the government and the Iranians the Houthi rebels; and in Syria, where Riyadh supports some rebel groups and Iran the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Mr Jubeir said Saudi Arabia would not let Iran undermine its security, accusing it of having “distributed weapons and planted terrorist cells in the region”.

“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.

The majority of the world’s Muslims are Sunni, between 85 and 90 per cent according to most counts, and spread across Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura was in Riyadh for talks and was to head later this week to Tehran to seek assurances that hard-won gains in the Syria peace process were not in jeopardy.

Both Iran and Saudi Arabia have a crucial role in the diplomatic push to end the almost five-year war in Syria and to bring about a political settlement for Yemen.

However, several of the smaller Gulf Arab states have good working relationships with Iran, and two of them, Oman and Qatar, have yet to take any action at all, says the BBC’s Jim Muir in Beirut.