Bahrain, Sudan and United Arab Emirates Join Diplomatic Feud Against Iran

TEHRAN — Three Sunni-led countries joined Saudi Arabia on Monday in severing or downgrading diplomatic ties with Iran, worsening a geopolitical conflict with sectarian dimensions in one of the world’s most volatile regions.
The diplomatic protests from the three countries — Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates — came as Iran accused Saudi Arabia of using an attack on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran two days earlier as a pretext for diverting attention from its problems.
Iranian protesters ransacked and set fire to the embassy on Saturday, along with the Saudi Consulate in Iran’s second-largest city, Mashhad, after the Saudis executed a Shiite cleric who had criticized the Sunni kingdom’s treatment of its Shiite minority. The Shiite cleric was among a group of 47 people who were executed.

The relations between Iran and Bahrain, a Shiite-majority island nation with a Sunni monarchy, were already poor, with Bahrain accusing Iran of meddling in its internal affairs by backing various Shiite opposition groups since the start of the Arab Spring, in 2011.

In October, after accusing Iran of shipping weapons to the island, Bahrain recalled its ambassador in Tehran and expelled the Iranian chargé d’affaires in its capital, Manama.
In a statement on Monday, Bahrain said the attack on the embassy and consulate in Iran occurred “without the slightest regard for values, the law or morality” and “confirms a determination to spread devastation and destruction, and provoke unrest and strife in the region by providing protection and support for terrorists and extremists and the smuggling of weapons and explosives for use by its affiliated terrorist cells.”
Sudan on Monday expelled the Iranian ambassador in Khartoum, the capital, in protest at the attack on the embassy, the Iranian news agency Fars reported.
The United Arab Emirates, which had already formally protested the embassy attack, on Monday downgraded its ties by recalling its ambassador to Tehran and ordering a reduction in the number of Iranian diplomats stationed in the Emirates.
“This exceptional step has been taken in the light of Iran’s continuous interference in the internal affairs of Gulf and Arab states, which has reached unprecedented levels,” the emirates’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
For its part, Iran, which has arrested dozens of protesters suspected of involvement in the assault on the embassy and consulate, said that Saudi Arabia was using the episode to distract attention from problems at home.
“Saudi Arabia, gripped by crises inside and outside its territories, follows the policy of increasing regional tensions,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hossein Jaberi-Ansari, said at a weekly news briefing on Monday, in remarks that were broadcast live by the state-run news channel Irinn.
Another official, the deputy foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, accused Saudi Arabia of making “strategic blunders,” saying it had contributed to the rise of terrorism in the region and “conspired to bring oil prices down.”

Mr. Abdollahian told the semiofficial news agency Fars that the execution of the Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, was the latest such blunder.
The United Nations, the United States and the European Union have condemned the executions, which the Saudis carried out against people it said were guilty of terrorism-related charges.
The Iranian vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, said that cutting ties with Tehran was Saudi Arabia’s “loss,” the semiofficial news agency Tasnim reported.
“Iran is a great country in the region and should be treated with respect,” he said. “When Iran treats you with self-restraint, you must learn, and put experienced executives in charge,” Mr. Jahangiri was quoted as saying.
“Saudis are advised to stop acting in a disruptive, hasty, illogical and emotional manner as well as works, because they are the ones who will face losses in cutting ties with Iran,” Mr. Jahangiri reportedly added.
While condemning the move by Saudi Arabia, officials in Iran reiterated comments on Sunday from its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that the attacks were not productive.
“We do not achieve anything by attacking embassies and setting them ablaze,” a hard-line prayer leader, Ahmad Khatami, told the Iranian Student News Agency on Monday. “We condemn the crimes of al-Saud, but we don’t consider attacking the Saudi Embassy or Consulate an appropriate act,” he said, referring to the House of Saud, Saudi Arabia’s ruling family.
Russia — a tactical ally of Iran, which, like Russia, supports the embattled government of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad — offered on Monday to mediate the escalating conflict.
The state-run news agency RIA Novosti in Moscow quoted a diplomat as saying that Russia had developed good relations with both countries through the so-called Vienna group, which is working on a resolution of the Syria conflict, and that he hoped those ties could help resolve the Iran-Saudi Arabia dispute.
The agency did not identify the Russian diplomat, and it was unclear from the report whether Moscow had formally made the mediation proposal to either side.

The post Bahrain, Sudan and United Arab Emirates Join Diplomatic Feud Against Iran appeared first on Awdalpress.com.