Iranian lawmakers denounce anti-Iran Saudi policies

Iranian parliamentarians have harshly criticized Saudi Arabia for adopting hostile policies toward Iran, including Riyadh’s recent aerial attack on Tehran’s mission in Yemen.

In a Monday statement, over 220 members of Iran’s parliament (Majlis) condemned Saudi Arabia’s air raid on the Iranian embassy in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, calling on the Foreign Ministry to pursue the issue through legal channels at the international level.

On January 6, Saudi jets targeted Iran’s embassy in Sana’a, damaging the mission’s building and wounding a number of security forces guarding the place.

The Iranian mission in Sana’a had also previously come under Saudi attacks. Riyadh launched its military campaign against Yemen on March 26, 2015.

Last June, Iran sent a letter to the UN Security Council to inform the 15-nation body that Riyadh’s air forces had pounded areas near Tehran’s embassy in the Yemeni capital twice during a period of two months.

The Iranian diplomatic mission’s compound suffered severe damage during the bombings on May 25, 2015, which was followed a similar attack on April 20 the same year.

The Iranian lawmakers also denounced Riyadh’s execution of top cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr and “the pressure Saudi Arabia exerts on its nation and other Muslim countries” in the region.

The statement came amid growing criticism of Saudi Arabia following the January 2 execution of Nimr, who was a vocal critic of Riyadh’s policies, alongside 46 other people. The execution provoked global popular backlash, including in Iran. 

Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic relations with Iran on January 3 following demonstrations 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 Nimr.

Some people mounted the walls of the consulate in Mashhad while incendiary devices were hurled at the embassy in Tehran. Some 60 people were detained over the transgression.

The Iranian government immediately condemned the move by the “rogue” group, whose members were arrested, further asserting that the incident does not diminish Riyadh’s accountability in Nimr’s execution.

The Iranian lawmakers also slammed Saudi Arabia for causing instability across the Middle East through supporting terrorist groups.

The Iranian parliamentarians described Saudi Arabia as a “hub for nurturing terrorist dogma,” reiterating the Islamic Republic’s firm determination to confront terrorism and those who support the ominous phenomena.

They said that Riyadh’s “wrongful” policies in attacking a Muslim country like Yemen has been adopted with a green light from the United States in order to serve the interests of the Israeli regime and undermine the Muslim countries.

Saudi Arabia started military attacks against Yemen in late March in a bid to undermine the country’s Houthi Ansarullah movement and bring its fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power. More than 7,500 people have been killed and over 14,000 others injured in the attacks.

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