Yesterday, Kuwait became the latest Gulf Arab state to recall its ambassador from Iran to protest attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in the Islamic republic. It did not, however, expel Tehran’s ambassador or downgrade the level of diplomatic relationship with Iran.
Over the last week, there has been summering tension in the Middle East after Sunni-led Saudi Arabia and Bahrain severed ties with predominantly Shiite Iran this week. This was followed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recalling its ambassador to Tehran and downgraded ties with Iran too.
Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, along with Oman and Qatar. Kuwait has maintained good relations with Tehran despite busting a cell allegedly spying for Iran in August as about a third of Kuwait’s native population of 1.3m is Shiite.
Relations between Riyadh and Tehran were already strained over their support for opposite sides in conflicts in Syrian and Yemen and were exacerbated over Saudi Arabia’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric. Kuwait, however, decided to act over Iran's reaction to Saudi Arabia's execution of a leading Shiite cleric last month.
Following the execution, Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran early last Sunday and Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, predicted divine vengeance for the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, an outspoken opponent of the ruling Al-Saudi family. Saudi Arabia's foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir said the attack in Tehran was in line with what he said were earlier Iranian assaults on foreign embassies there and with Iranian policies of destabilising the region by creating terrorist cells in Saudi Arabia.
One Kuwaiti foreign ministry official said: "The attacks represent a flagrant breach of international agreements and norms and a grave violation of Iran’s international commitments for the security of diplomatic missions and the safety of diplomats.”
There are fears that the crisis could have an impact on global oil supplies and prices, which are at a current low of $37 a barrel. This time last year, oil prices were as high as $140 a barrel and Nigeria along with other Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) are looking at ways to curb supplies and rally prices.
Ecuador has called for the cooperation of Nigeria as part of the efforts to halt the free fall of crude oil prices and proposed a cut in Opec's daily production quota which currently stand at 30m barrel per day. Ecuadorian ambassador to Nigeria, Leopoldo Rovayo Verdesoto called for a cut in the current Opec daily quota, stressing that the market was flooded.
He also called for the support of Nigeria in the push for the resuscitation of the Opec monitoring committee. Mr Verdesoto argued that Nigeria and Ecuador could play the lead role in addressing the current situation in the international oil market.
Me Verdesoto added: “Nigeria and Ecuador could make a sign to the market and work towards reducing production on a daily basis. What I would like to do is to improve the relationship between both countries in the field of petroleum and as we are both members of Opec and there is a lot of work to do because there are lots of interest and even in Opec there are different points of views but it seems that we have to make signs to the market that we could work together to put production in a less daily basis.”
He noted that a proposal to that effect was already been prepared by his country’s minister of petroleum. Mr Verdesoto pointed out, however, that this is not the only issue affecting the price of crude oil in international markets as there are other factors including a fall in demand.
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