Riyadh: As tension mounts between Riyadh and Tehran, demands for the Kingdom to do more to punish Iran over the alleged conspiracy to kill Saudi Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir in the US are rising.
Saleh Al-Khathlan, vice president of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), said that the Kingdom should recall its ambassador from Tehran and take other appropriate measures to respond “in full” to the heinous Iranian conspiracy.
“All options are open for us to respond to the Iranian plot,” said Osama Nugali, a spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while speaking to Arab News by telephone from Cairo.
Nugali said there was no move to recall the Saudi ambassador from Tehran for the time being, adding that the Kingdom is a peace-loving nation.
However, he did not rule out any future course of action that could prove to be a deterrent for Iran and for those nations that have complicity in causing trouble in the Kingdom.
Although Al-Khathlan demanded the recall of the Saudi ambassador to Tehran, he cautioned against escalating tension, particularly when there are many unanswered questions surrounding the alleged plot.
“After this incident Saudis will expect the Kingdom to take measures, the least of which will be to pull the Saudi ambassador,” said Abdullah Alshammari, a government official in Riyadh.
“There were always problems with Iran and Saudi Arabia, what is new now is that America is involved. The fact that the Saudi ambassador was the target in the US, I believe this will mean the Kingdom and the United States will take a joint decision together.”
Hassan Al-Ahdal, another political analyst, said that Iran was worried about losing its only Arab ally, Syria, because of domestic turmoil there, “so it is creating havoc in other countries.”
“Targeting Saudi diplomats is one way to weaken Saudi diplomacy as well as fomenting civil disturbances in GCC states, most notably, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain,” he added.
This is not for the first time that relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have flared. Iranian protesters firebombed the Saudi Embassy in Tehran in April this year.
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