Iran advises Saudi to stop 'hasty' and 'irrational' moves

Iran’s First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri has called on Saudi officials to stop taking “hasty” and “irrational” measures, in the wake of Riyadh’s decision to sever diplomatic ties with Tehran.

Speaking in the Iranian capital of Tehran on Monday, Jahangiri said Saudi Arabia, not Iran, will be the one to suffer as a result of the severance of relations.

On Sunday, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir announced his country was cutting diplomatic relations with Iran. Saudi Arabia had just executed prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, and faced strong protest from the Iranian government and people.

Demonstrations were held in front of the Saudi embassy in Tehran and its consulate in the northeastern city of Mashhad by angry protesters censuring the Al Saud family for the killing of the top cleric.

Amid the largely peaceful protests, a group of people scaled the walls of the consulate in Mashhad while incendiary devices were hurled at the embassy in Tehran. Some 50 people were detained over the violation of the diplomatic perimeters.

The execution of Sheikh Nimr, which was announced on Saturday, has also drawn strong condemnations from governments and human rights groups all across the world.

Reacting to the Saudi decision to cut diplomatic ties with Iran, Jahangiri said, “I advise the Saudi leaders to stop these subversive, hasty, illogical, emotional acts that are marked by mismanagement.”

He said that, despite Saudi Arabia’s destructive policies in recent years, Iran has treated Riyadh with restraint. “You, too, should learn this [kind of] behavior.”

“Just look what chaos you have created in the region over the past couple of years,” the Iranian first vice president said. “What came of your move to create terrorist groups other than plunging the region into disarray and the plundering of the properties of the people of Syria and Iraq and elsewhere?”

He also censured the Saudi war on Yemen, and Riyadh’s military intervention in Bahrain, which came in March 2011 in an attempt to help the Manama regime suppress anti-government protests there.

Jahangiri stressed that the people of Saudi Arabia have always been respected by the Islamic Republic, and emphasized, “We don’t want Saudi Arabia harmed, and [that’s why] we advise them.”

Saudi Arabia began military strikes against Yemen in late March 2015. More than 7,500 people have been killed and over 14,000 others injured since the strikes began. The Saudi war has also taken a heavy toll on the impoverished country’s facilities and infrastructure.

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