Report: Saudi Arabia blames Iran for trying to kill its envoy in Cairo
By NVONews.Com Correspondent,
Cairo: Late on Saturday night came the news of the withdrawal of ambassador by Saudi Arabia from Cairo. Not only the embassy but also consulates in the cities of Alexandria and Suez were closed.
The Saudi anger was essentially directed against the Muslim Brotherhood then.
Three days later on Tuesday came another news; that the Egyptian security services foiled an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Cairo several months ago.
The source of the news is the legal advisor of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Cairo, Sami Jamal, who was quoted in several dailies of the Kingdom on Tuesday.
He was quoted in Al-Hayat as saying: “Egypt arrested three Iranians planning to assassinate the ambassador, Ahmed Qattan.”
“Egyptian authorities informed concerned parties at the Saudi foreign ministry of the details of the plot, but the Saudi side opted to keep silent on the matter,” Jamal further said. He said the arrests were made three months ago.
Another daily Al-Sharq quoted him as saying: “Everybody was concerned that foreign parties would exploit demonstrations by some Egyptians outside the embassy in Cairo to attack members of the mission.”
But he failed to explain why this old news was being highlighted now and how is it related to the last Friday’s demonstration by Egyptians, who openly condemned the arrest of human rights lawyer, Ahmed El-Gezawi, on April 17 in that country and that too when he went for pilgrimage. The lawyer incidentally was accused of smuggling drug to Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, told reporters in Tehran that the allegation was “absolutely incorrect.”
“Manufacturing such issues can only help divisions among Muslim countries and benefit the Zionist regime (Israel),” he said in a statement.
Interestingly, the news of this great Iranian plot has come from Riyadh and not Cairo, where it was alleged to be hatched. In Egypt the army is now almost on the verge of handling over the power to civil administration after the May 23-24 presidential election.
Curiously, in October the United States accused Iran of plotting to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Iran strongly refuted the charge.
Political observers are of the view that the Saudi allegation that Iran was involved in an alleged plot to kill its envoy several months back is just a cooked up story to distract the attention. “Riyadh perhaps realized that closing down the embassy in Cairo had sent a wrong signal as Muslim Brotherhood had a lot of goodwill among the common Muslims the world over. So as in the past a Shia and Iranian angle were given to this latest crisis too,” said a Saudi watcher.
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