OREANDA-NEWS. The row between Opec members Saudi Arabia and Iran has escalated, after Riyadh severed its diplomatic relations with Tehran in response to the storming of its embassy by Iranian protesters angry at the execution of Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

Members of the Iranian diplomatic mission to Riyadh have been asked to leave Saudi Arabia within 48 hours, Saudi foreign minister Adel Jubeir said yesterday.

Jubeir said the attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran was similar to attacks against the British embassy several years earlier, as well as on the US embassy in 1979. He claimed it was in line with Iranian policies to destabilise the region.

Iran's interior ministry has ordered the identification, arrest and prosecution of the Iranian perpetrators of the attack on the Saudi embassy, deputy interior minister Hosseinali Amiri said.

Iranian leaders and politicians have condemned Saudi Arabia's execution of al-Nimr, a vocal but peaceful critic of the Saudi ruling establishment and a high-profile advocate of equality for Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority, concentrated in the oil rich eastern part of the country.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei said the Saudi authorities would suffer "divine retribution" for "shedding the blood of innocents."

The speaker of Iran's parliament Ali Larijani said the execution "will increase regional security problems" and that Saudi Arabia's "inhuman and wrong acts, particularly in the past one or two years, have fuelled fires of war and insecurity."

Saudi Arabia and Iran are on opposite sides of the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.

Sheikh al-Nimr was one of 47 men convicted of offences related to terrorism who were executed on 1 January. Most were Sunnis convicted in relation to involvement in al-Qaeda attacks over the past 10 years. But al-Nimr was involved in anti-government protests that broke out in Saudi Arabia in the wake of the Arab Spring. His execution prompted demonstrations in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, in Iraq, Bahrain and several other countries.