CAIRO // Arab League foreign ministers agreed at an emergency meeting in Cairo on Sunday to condemn the attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran and accused the Tehran government of failing to protect them.
In a closing statement, the Arab League also condemned the reported discovery by Bahrain of a militant group that it said was backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
All members of the Arab League voted in favour of the statement, with the exception of Lebanon, where Iranian-backed Hizbollah is a powerful political force.
The statement did not agree on any specific joint measures against Iran but set up a smaller committee to keep up discussions on the crisis and consult on possible actions.
Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed and Saudi foreign minister Adel Al Jubeir accused Iran of intentionally failing to protect Saudi diplomatic posts.
The ministers met to rally behind Saudi Arabia a week after it cut ties with Iran in a diplomatic crisis that has threatened to worsen Middle East conflicts.
Iran, meanwhile, accused Saudi Arabia of hurting efforts to resolve the Syrian civil war with the dispute, which has escalated tensions between the Sunni and Shiite regional rivals to greater heights.
Opening the meeting of Arab League diplomatic chiefs in Cairo, the group’s head Nabil Al Arabi accused Tehran of “provocative acts” and called for Arab unity.
He urged the foreign ministers to “adopt a strong and clear common position calling on Iran to stop all forms of interference in the affairs of Arab nations”.
Mr Al Jubeir denounced Iranian statements “hostile to Saudi Arabia” that he said had “directly driven the attacks” on Saudi diplomatic missions that led Riyadh to end ties.
The row erupted following Saudi Arabia’s execution on January 2 of a prominent Shiite imam, Nimr Al Nimr, along with 46 others on terrorism charges.
The execution touched off anti-Saudi demonstrations in many Shiite countries, including Iran, where demonstrators ransacked and set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran and its consulate in second city Mashhad.
Riyadh cut diplomatic ties with Tehran the next day and was followed by a number of its Arab allies including Bahrain and Sudan. Other Arab countries, including the UAE, downgraded ties or recalled their envoys to Tehran.
The dispute escalated, with Tehran on Thursday saying Saudi warplanes had bombed its embassy in Yemen, wounding staff, and vowing to approach the UN Security Council.
Riyadh, which is leading an Arab military intervention against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen, denied the accusation, saying no operations were carried out near the mission.
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have also cut air links with Iran, while Tehran has banned Saudi goods from import.
Yesterday’s talks in Cairo came after foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council expressed their “total support” for Saudi Arabia on Saturday.
The dispute raised fears of increased sectarian unrest across the Middle East and concerns it could derail efforts to resolve several conflicts, including in Yemen and Syria, where Saudi Arabia and Iran support opposing sides.
Iran, which denounced the attacks on the embassies and vowed to punish the perpetrators, has accused Saudi Arabia of using the crisis to distract attention from the execution and as a cover for anti-Iranian diplomatic efforts.
Iran’s signing of a deal with world powers over its nuclear programme last year sparked great concern in Saudi Arabia, a key US ally, that its old rival was emerging from international isolation.
Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Sunday accused Saudi Arabia of using the dispute to hurt efforts to resolve the Syrian conflict, in which Riyadh is supporting rebel forces against president Bashar Al Assad, who is backed by Tehran.
“Saudi Arabia’s approach is to create tension intended to negatively affect the Syrian crisis,” Mr Zarif said. But after talks with Mr Zarif in Tehran on Sunday and with Saudi officials in the past week, UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura insisted the dispute would not damage his efforts.
“The Saudi foreign minister assured me that there would be no impact from their point of view. In Iran I got the same assurance,” he said.
The UN Security Council is backing an 18-month plan to end Syria’s nearly five-year war.
* Agencies