Saudis break Iran ties after executing cleric
TEHRAN, Iran — Saudi Arabia announced Sunday it was severing diplomatic relations with regional Shiite power Iran amid escalating tensions over the Sunni kingdom’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.
The move came hours after protesters stormed and set fire to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and followed harsh criticism by Iran’s top leader of the Saudis’ execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Iranian diplomatic personnel had 48 hours to leave his country and all Saudi diplomatic personnel in Iran had been called home.
The execution of al-Nimr and 46 others — the largest carried out by Saudi Arabia in 31⁄2 decades — laid bare the sectarian divisions gripping the region as demonstrators took to the streets from Bahrain to Pakistan in protest.
It also illustrated the kingdom’s new aggressiveness under King Salman. During his reign, Saudi Arabia has led a coalition fighting Shiite rebels in Yemen and staunchly opposed Iran, even as Tehran struck a nuclear deal with world powers.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Saudi Arabia on Sunday of “divine revenge” over al-Nimr’s death, while Riyadh accused Tehran of supporting “terrorism” in a war of words that threatened to escalate as the U.S. and European Union sought to calm the region.
Al-Nimr was a central figure in Arab Spring-inspired protests by Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority until his arrest in 2012. He was convicted of terrorism charges, but he denied advocating violence.
On Saturday, Saudi Arabia put al-Nimr and three other Shiite dissidents to death, along with a number of al-Qaida militants. AlNimr’s execution drew protests around the world from Shiites who backed his call for reform and wider political freedom for their sect.
While the split between Sunnis and Shiites dates to the early days of Islam and disagreements over the successor to Prophet Muhammad, those divisions have grown as they intertwine with regional politics, as Iran and Saudi Arabia vie to be the Mideast’s top power.
Iran accuses Saudi Arabia of supporting terrorism in part because it backs Syrian rebel groups fighting to oust its embattled ally, President Bashar Assad. Saudi Arabia points to Iran’s backing of the Lebanese Hezbollah and other Shiite militant groups in the region as a sign of its support for terrorism. Iran also has backed Shiite rebels in Yemen known as Houthis.
Iran’s Khamenei condemned al-Nimr’s execution, saying Sunday the cleric “neither invited people to take up arms nor hatched covert plots. The only thing he did was public criticism.”
Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard said Saudi Arabia’s “medieval act of savagery” would lead to the “downfall” of the country’s monarchy. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry said that by condemning the execution, Iran had “revealed its true face represented in support for terrorism.”
In Tehran, a protest outside the Saudi Embassy early Sunday quickly grew violent as protesters threw stones and gasoline bombs at the embassy, setting part of the building ablaze, according to Gen. Hossein Sajedinia, the country’s top police official, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported.
Forty people were arrested, and investigators were pursuing other suspects, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi said, according to the semiofficial ISNA news agency.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani condemned the execution of al-Nimr but also branded those who attacked the Saudi Embassy as “extremists.”
Hundreds of protesters later demonstrated in front of the embassy and in a central Tehran square.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said the Obama administration was aware of the Saudis’ severing of ties with Tehran.
“We believe that diplomatic engagement and direct conversations remain essential in working through differences, and we will continue to urge leaders across the region to take affirmative steps to calm tensions,” Kirby said.
The disruption in relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran may have implications for peace efforts in Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry and others spent significant time trying to bring the countries to the negotiating table, and they sat together at talks aimed at finding a diplomatic solution to the civil war.
The cleric’s execution has also threatened to complicate Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the Shiite-led government in Iraq.