Saudis cut off Tehran ties; UAE, others downgrade it

Saudi Arabia to halt flights, trade with Iran, says foreign minister

Saudi Arabia’s Sunni allies rallied behind the kingdom on Monday and several joined Riyadh in severing or downgrading diplomatic relations with Tehran, deepening a sectarian split across the Middle East.

Bahrain and Sudan cut all ties with Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), home to hundreds of thousands of Iranians, downgraded its relations. But other Gulf Arab countries — Kuwait, Qatar and Oman — stayed above the fray. Saudi Arabia broke off relations on Sunday after a mob stormed its embassy in Tehran. Shia power Iran accused Saudi Arabia of using the attack on the embassy as an “excuse” to sever ties and further increase sectarian tensions.

Oil prices rose more than two per cent, overcoming economic weakness in Asia, as the two big petroleum exporters traded insults and tensions spilled into other crude producers such as Iraq. Stock markets across the Gulf dropped sharply, led by Qatar which fell more than 2.5 per cent, with geopolitical jitters outweighing any benefit from stronger oil.

The row threatened to derail efforts to end Syria’s five-year-old civil war, where Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab powers support rebel groups against Iran-backed President Bashar al-Assad.

In neighbouring Lebanon, newspapers said the spat had clouded the hopes of filling the vacant presidency that had been raised last month after Iran and Saudi Arabia both voiced support for a power-sharing deal.

After a furious response in Shia communities worldwide to the Sunni kingdom’s execution of Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir said Iran was creating “terrorist cells” among the kingdom’s Shia minority.

Saudi Arabia executed Nimr and three other Shias on terrorism charges on Saturday, alongside dozens of Sunni jihadists. Shia Iran hailed him as a “martyr” and warned Saudi Arabia’s ruling Al Saud family of “divine revenge”. Shia groups united in condemnation of Saudi Arabia while Sunni powers rallied behind the kingdom, hardening a sectarian split that has torn apart communities across the Middle East and nourished the jihadist ideology of Islamic State.

Some 80 Saudis, including diplomats and their families, had already left Iran and arrived in Dubai on Monday, diplomatic sources said. Iranian officials denounced the Saudi move as a tactic that would inflame regional tensions.

“Saudi Arabia sees not only its interests but also its existence in pursuing crises and confrontations and (it) attempts to resolve its internal problems by exporting them to the outside,” foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said.

Saudi Arabia widened its rift with Iran on Monday, saying it would end air traffic and trade links with the Islamic republic and demanding that Tehran must “act like a normal country” before it would restore severed diplomatic relations.

Foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir told Reuters in an interview that Tehran was responsible for rising tensions after the kingdom executed Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday. Insisting Riyadh would react to “Iranian aggression”, Mr Jubeir accused Tehran of despatching fighters to Arab countries and plotting attacks inside the kingdom and its Gulf neighbours.

“There is no escalation on the part of Saudi Arabia. Our moves are all reactive. It is the Iranians who went into Lebanon. It is the Iranians who sent their Qods Force and their Revolutionary Guards into Syria,” he said. Iranian pilgrims would still be welcome to visit Islam’s holiest sites in Mecca and Medina in western Saudi Arabia, either for the annual haj or at other times of year on the umrah pilgrimage, he said.

However, Mr Jubeir said Saudi Arabia had been right to execute Nimr, whom he accused of “agitating, organising cells, providing them with weapons and money”. After listing the crimes of 43 Al Qaeda members also put to death on Saturday alongside four Shias, Jubeir said of the executions: “We should be applauded for this, not criticised.”

Bahrain, a Sunni-ruled island kingdom with a restive Shia majority, accused Iran of “blatant and dangerous interference” in the affairs of the Gulf Arab countries, in a statement announcing the severing of diplomatic ties. Western powers, many of which supply billions of dollars worth of weaponry to Gulf Arab powers, tried to tamp down the tensions with Iran but also deplored the executions, as human rights groups strongly criticised Saudi Arabia’s judicial process and protesters gathered outside Saudi embassies. Nevertheless, analysts said fears of a sectarian rupture across the Middle East were premature, and the break inrelations could be more a symptom of existing strains than evidence of new ones.