Oil prices rebound in Asia as Saudi-Iran row deepens

As part of the measures to sever ties, Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority also confirmed late on Monday that all flights to and from Iran had been cancelled.

Saudi Arabia on Sunday cut diplomatic ties with Iran after protesters set its embassy in Tehran on fire.

On Saturday, Saudi Arabia executed cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and 46 others after they were convicted of terror-related offences.

The killings have since sparked protests in Nimr’s home region as well as large-scale protests in Bahrain, Pakistan and Iran, where protesters invaded the Saudi embassy in Tehran on Saturday night.

Painstaking efforts have been made to get the two sides to join peace talks later this month aimed at resolving the Syrian conflict, but observers say that with Saudi-Iranian diplomatic ties severed, chances of success look ever more distant.

The United Nations was working hard Monday to save fragile worldwide talks to end the conflicts in Yemen and Syria from a potential collapse because of the recent tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran over the execution of a Saudi Shiite cleric.

Some 3,000 demonstrators gathered in eastern Tehran’s Imam Hossein Square, chanting slogans against Saudi Arabia’s Al-Saud royal family.

“We call for resolution of differences through peaceful means in the larger interest of Muslim unity in these challenging times“, the Pakistan foreign ministry said.

Many countries including world powers on Monday expressed concern over rising tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran as well as unrest in the Middle East. “It is the Iranians who sent their Qods Force and their Revolutionary Guards into Syria”, Jubeir said.

Egypt’s foreign minister has denounced the attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran as “unacceptable”.

The Foreign Office has defended the exclusion of Saudi Arabia, where 47 alleged terrorists were executed at the weekend, from a British list of “priority” countries to be challenged by diplomats over their use of the death penalty.

The Saudi-Iran rift was seen by United Nations diplomats as a potential setback to the peace effort in Syria, where Tehran is among Assad’s strongest allies while Riyadh is backing militias fighting Damascus.

Officials were preparing for a high-level USA conversation with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to stress the importance of continuing the Iraqi government’s outreach to Sunni militias, the officials said.

In Shia-majority Iraq, top cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called Nimr’s execution “an unjust act of aggression”, and on Monday blasts rocked two Sunni mosques, wounding at least three people.