Dubai: Saudi Arabia has slammed Iran for not allowing a Saudi diplomatic team to be a part of an investigation into attacks on the Gulf kingdom’s embassy and consulate in Iran last year.
A statement from the Saudi Arabian Embassy here on Thursday said that despite initial approval, Iran denied the Saudi team a role in probing the attacks on its embassy in Tehran and the consulate in the Iranian city of Mashhad in January last year.
On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia said it would take up Tehran’s refusal to resume investigations into the attacks.
“Such delays reflect the behaviour and approach of the Iranian government and its failure to respect international covenants, conventions and laws and violate the inviolability of diplomatic missions, an approach that Iran has been using for 38 years,” an official statement carried on the Saudi Press Agency read.
In January 2016, Iranians ransacked and set fire to Saudi missions in Iran after Riyadh executed 47 convicts on terrorism-related charges, including an antigovernment Shiite cleric Nimr Al Nimr.
Witnesses reported that protesters broke furniture and smashed windows, threw fire bombs at the embassy and then broke into the compound, ransacked offices and threw papers from the roof.
Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Sudan, Somalia and Djibouti had severed their diplomatic relations with Iran following the attacks and condemned the Iranian interference in Arab countries.
Gulf countries recalled their ambassadors to protest Iran’s behaviour.
