Iranian diplomats leave Riyadh as Saudi Arabia cuts diplomatic ties
A total of 30 Iranian diplomats left the embassy in Saudi Arabia.
DUBAI (Dunya News) – Iranian diplomats on Tuesday started leaving Riyadh for their home country as Saudi Arabia cut all diplomatic ties with Iran. The Saudi government had given them a deadline of 48 hours to leave the country.
A total of 30 Iranian diplomats left the embassy in Saudi Arabia. They had been working in the embassy in Riyadh and in Jeddah consulate. Saudi embassy officials have already left Iran.
Saudi Arabia said on Monday 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.
Saudi Arabia cut all ties with Iran on Sunday following the kingdom s execution of prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Protesters in Iran and Iraq marched for a third day to denounce the execution.
When asked what it would take for ties to be restored, Saudi U.N. Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi told reporters: "Very simple - Iran to cease and desist from interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, including our own."
He added, "If they do so, we will of course have normal relations with Iran. We are not natural-born enemies of Iran."
Bahrain, Sudan and now Kuwait cut all ties with Iran, following Riyadh s example. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told Reuters Riyadh would also halt air traffic and commercial relations between the rival powers.
Jubeir blamed Iran s "aggressive policies" for the diplomatic action, alluding to years of tension that spilt over on Saturday night when Iranian protesters stormed the kingdom s embassy in Tehran.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), home to hundreds of thousands of Iranians, partially downgraded its relations but the other Gulf Arab countries like Qatar and Oman stayed above the fray.
Iran accused Saudi Arabia of using the attack on the embassy as an "excuse" to sever ties and further increase sectarian tensions.
A man was shot dead in Saudi Arabia s Eastern Province late on Sunday, and two mosques in Iraq s Hilla province were bombed in the fallout from the dispute between the Middle East s top sectarian powers.
But analysts said fears of a sectarian rupture across the Middle East were premature, and the break in Saudi-Iran relations could be more a symptom of existing strains than evidence of new ones.
"The downgrading of ties is not fundamentally a question of responding to executions and the storming of an embassy... (but rather) a function of a much deeper conflict between the two states," said Julien Barnes-Dacey, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
CALLS FOR RESTRAINT
The United Nations (UN), Pakistan, US and Turkey have all urged both countries to ease tensions.
Crude importer China declared itself "highly concerned" with the developments, in a rare foray into Middle East diplomacy. The United States and Germany called for restraint.
Russia offered to mediate an end to the dispute but a U.S. senior State Department official said Iran and Saudi Arabia must work out their differences themselves.
"It is not going to be helpful for us to own this process, certainly to be seen to be driving it," the U.S. official said. "They have to work this out between themselves if a solution to this tension is going to be long-lasting and sustainable."
Brent LCOc1 jumped 4 percent early on worries about the tensions. But the crude oil benchmark erased its gains and settled a few cents lower as fears rose about the global economy and the Middle East dispute looked unlikely to disrupt oil supplies immediately.
