Saudi envoy 'plot' harms relations with Iran

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) condemned on Wednesday the alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi envoy to Washington, saying it harms Gulf-Iranian relations, Saudi state news agency SPA said. Riyadh strongly condemned the "sinful and abhorrent" attempt to assassinate its Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir, applauding US efforts to foil the attempt. GCC chief Abdullatif al-Zayani said the reported attempt to kill the Saudi envoy was a "flagrant violation of all laws and agreements," adding it was "severely harmful to the relations between GCC member states and Iran," SPA said. Zayani urged Tehran to depart from its "negative way" of dealing with GCC members which also include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He called on Iran to "rebuild its relations with the council states on the basis of frankness, clarity, constructive cooperation and good neighbourly relations, away from its current negative way," SPA reported. An unnamed Saudi official quoted by SPA said the kingdom "strongly condemns the sinful and abhorrent attempt to assassinate the (Saudi) envoy... to the United States." "The government of the kingdom appreciates the efforts exerted by the American authorities, which were followed by the kingdom, in uncovering the plot," the official added. Falling short of following Washington in naming Iran as the culprit, Saudi Arabia "will continue to coordinate with the US authorities over this mean conspiracy and those behind it," the official said. The kingdom is also "looking into measures and decisive steps that it will take in this regard to stop these criminal acts, and to firmly address all attempts to shake the stability of the kingdom and endanger its security and sow sedition between its people," he added. "The kingdom calls on the Arab and Islamic nations and the international community to assume their responsibilities in face of these terrorist acts and the attempts to threaten state stability, and world security and peace." The US Justice Department on Tuesday charged two men with conspiring with Iranian officials to assassinate Jubeir. Iran, facing four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions over its nuclear programme, called the US allegations part of an "evil plot" against it, and wrote to the UN Security Council, accusing Washington of "warmongering." Relations between the Sunni-ruled Arab states in the Gulf and non-Arab predominantly Shiite Iran were further strained following a crackdown in March on protests in Bahrain that had been led by the tiny kingdom's Shiite majority. Saudi's interior ministry blamed unrest last week in its Eastern Province, home to most of its Shiite minority, on a "foreign country." Shiite activists in Gulf countries are regularly accused of having links with their co-religionists in Iran.