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Cleveland Daily Banner—Monday, January 4, 2016—17
Amid growing tensions, Saudi allies scale down ties to Iran
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Allies of
Saudi Arabia followed the kingdom’s lead and on Monday
began scaling down their diplomatic ties to Iran in the wake of
the ransacking of Saudi diplomatic missions in the Islamic
Republic, violence that was
sparked by the Saudis’ execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.
The tiny island kingdom of
Bahrain announced it would
sever its ties completely from
Iran, as Saudi Arabia did late
on Sunday.
Within hours, the United
Arab Emirates announced it
would downgrade its own diplomatic ties to Tehran, bringing
them down to the level of the
charge d’affaires and would
from now on focus entirely on
the business relationships
between the two countries.
The Saudi decision to halt
diplomatic relations came after
its the mass execution
Saturday of Shiite cleric Sheikh
Nimr al-Nimr and 46 others —
the largest carried out by Saudi
Arabia in three and a half
decades — laid bare the sectar-
ian divisions gripping the
region. Shiite protesters took to
the streets from Bahrain to
Pakistan while Arab allies of
Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia
quickly lined up behind the
kingdom.
Al-Nimr was a central figure
in the Arab Spring-inspired
protests by Saudi Arabia’s
Shiite minority until his arrest
in 2012. He was convicted of
terrorism charges but denied
advocating violence.
Bahrain enjoys particularly
close relations with Saudi
Arabia, which like Bahrain’s
leadership is suspicious of
alleged Iranian efforts to destabilize the island nation, which
has a tiny Shiite-majority but is
Sunni-ruled. Riyadh, along with
the UAE, sent tanks and troops
to Bahrain in 2011 to quell
widespread anti-government
protests
spearheaded
by
Bahrain’s Shiite majority.
Bahraini
officials
have
blamed Iran for training militants and attempting to smuggle arms into the country,
which hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5th
Fleet.
In October, Bahrain ordered
the acting Iranian charge d’affaires to leave within 72 hours
and recalled its own ambassador from Tehran after alleging
Iran sponsored “subversion”
and “terrorism” and funneled
arms to militants.
The UAE, a country of seven
emirates, has a long trading
history with Iran and is home to
many ethnic Iranians.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel
al-Jubeir announced the cut in
Riyadh-Tehran relations late
Sunday and gave Iranian diplomatic personnel 48 hours to
leave his country. All Saudi
diplomatic personnel in Iran
have been called home.
The move could affect the
annual
hajj
pilgrimage.
Lawmaker Mohammad Ali
Esfanani, spokesman of the
Judicial and Legal Committee of
the Iranian parliament, said
security issues and the fact that
Iranian pilgrims wouldn’t have
consular protection inside the
kingdom made halting the pilgrimage likely, according to the
semi-official ISNA news agency.
Both Saudi Arabia and Iran
have yet to make any formal
announcement about how the
diplomatic spat would affect the
hajj, a pilgrimage to Islamic
holy sites in Saudi Arabia
required of all able-bodied
Muslims once in their life. The
hajj this year likely will begin in
early
September,
though
Muslims travel to the holy sites
all year long as well.
“When a country has cut
diplomatic relations with us, it
means it is hostile with us,”
Esfanani said. “It appears that
protection (of pilgrims) and
security issues will prevent hajj
from taking place.”
When Saudi Arabia severed
ties with Iran from 1988 to
1991, Iran stopped its pilgrims
from attending the hajj. Also,
with Saudi diplomatic missions
closed in Iran, it will make it
difficult for Iranians to get visas
for the hajj.
World powers have sought to
calm the tensions, with a
Russian state news agency on
Monday quoting an unnamed
senior diplomat as saying
Moscow is ready to act as a
mediator in the escalating con-
flict. The RIA Novosti news
agency did not say whether
Moscow had made the mediation proposal to either side.
In
Washington,
State
Department spokesman John
Kirby said the Obama administration believes “diplomatic
engagement and direct conversations remain essential in
working through differences.”
“We will continue to urge
leaders across the region to
take affirmative steps to calm
tensions,” Kirby said.
Earlier Sunday, EU foreign
policy chief Federica Mogherini
spoke to Iranian Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad
Zarif by phone and urged
Tehran to “defuse the tensions
and protect the Saudi diplomats,” according to a statement.
The disruption in relations
between Saudi Arabia and Iran
may have implications for peace
efforts in Syria. U.S. Secretary
of State John Kerry and others
spent significant time trying to
bring the countries to the negotiating table and they both sat
together at talks aimed at find-
ing a diplomatic solution to the
civil war.
Last month, Saudi Arabia
convened a meeting of Syrian
opposition figures that was
designed to create a delegation
to attend peace talks with the
Syrian government that are
supposed to begin in midJanuary.
Meanwhile, al-Nimr’s family
is holding three days of mourning at a mosque in al-Awamiya
village in the kingdom’s al-Qatif
region in predominantly Shiite
eastern Saudi Arabia. The
sheikh’s brother, Mohammed
al-Nimr, told The Associated
Press that Saudi officials
informed his family that the
cleric had been buried in an
undisclosed cemetery, a development that could lead to further protests.
Early Monday, the state-run
Saudi Press Agency said a
shooting targeting security
forces in the village killed a man
and wounded a child. It offered
no motive for the attack, nor for
another it said saw a mob beat
and briefly kidnap a man driving through the area.
Gunmen holed up at Indian air f