Kuwait recalled its ambassador to Iran on Tuesday, becoming the latest Sunni Muslim ally of Saudi Arabia to cut or downgrade ties with Tehran amid an escalating sectarian crisis in the Middle East.
Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry said the move was in response to Sunday’s attacks by Iranian protesters on Saudi diplomatic compounds in Tehran and Mashhad, which it denounced as a “flagrant breach of international conventions” and a failure by Iranian authorities to protect foreign diplomatic missions and property in the country.
Kuwait’s deputy foreign minister also summoned the Iranian ambassador and handed him a protest note over the attacks on Saudi facilities, according to Kuwait’s state news agency.
With tensions rising, the Gulf Cooperation Council—the six-country bloc of Gulf Arab countries that includes Saudi Arabia and Kuwait—called for an emergency meeting in Riyadh this Saturday to discuss the situation.
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeirwill chair the meeting.
Turkey joined in condemning Iran on Tuesday, with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu saying that the breakdown of security for Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran was “unacceptable.”
The criticism by Mr. Davutoglu, as well as a statement on Tuesday by Turkey’s foreign ministry urging Riyadh and Tehran to ease tensions, comes after back-to-back high-level visits by Turkish officials to the Saudi capital in the past week.
The two, mainly Sunni Muslim nations are pushing to deepen diplomatic, economic and military ties—in particular, to increase coordination in the fight against the extremist group Islamic State and to counter the clout of predominantly Shiite Iran in Syria and Iraq.
Anger spread through Shiite Muslim populations in the region after a leading Shiite cleric, Nemer al-Nemer, was executed in Saudi Arabia on Saturday following his conviction on charges of disobeying the ruler, inciting sectarian strife and bearing arms against security forces.
Sunnis make up at least 87% of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, and Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s major holy sites, is the Middle East’s leading Sunni power. More than a third of the world’s Shiites live in Iran, Saudi Arabia’s chief rival for power and influence in the region.
Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic ties with Iran on Sunday and lodged a formal complaint with the United Nations about the attacks on its diplomatic missions. It stopped all flights between the kingdom and Iran.
Gholamali Khoshroo, Iran’s envoy to the U.N., said in a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that Iranian security forces tried to prevent the protests from turning violent. More than 40 people were arrested and an investigation was under way to find other perpetrators, the envoy said.
Iranian officials, including leaders of its powerful Revolutionary Guards, have condemned the attacks on Saudi facilities even as they decried Mr. al-Nemer’s execution.
Mohsen Kazemeini, a commander of a Tehran-based unit of the Revolutionary Guards, said that the raid on the embassy “was a very wrong move and a mistake,” according to a news website affiliated with the judiciary.
“This heinous act can’t be justified by any means,” he said.
The small Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain followed Saudi Arabia on Monday by cutting all ties with Iran, citing the Islamic Republic’s alleged interference in its affairs and those of its allies. On Tuesday, Bahrain said it was shutting down air traffic with Iran, echoing an earlier move by Saudi Arabia.
Sudan, another Saudi ally, also cut ties on Monday, while the United Arab Emirates, a key partner in Saudi Arabia’s monthslong military campaign against Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen, said that it was recalling its ambassador to Tehran and would reduce the number of Iranian diplomats allowed in its capital, Abu Dhabi.
The moves have raised concern in Western capitals and at the U.N. that an escalation of sectarian anger could jeopardize international efforts to defeat Islamic State extremists and solve long-running crises in Syria and Yemen.
