Tehran has fiercely attacked Saudi Arabia calling it to give Shiite citizens their rights. This came after Morocco broke off its diplomatic relations with Iran, accusing it of doing wrong to the religious components and prejudicing the unity of the Moroccan people and its Sunni doctrine. During Friday prayers, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami – one of the closest clerics to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – confirmed that Iran supported Saudi Shiites because they were oppressed. Khatami added that the Wahabis are not Sunnis, accusing the Saudi Foreign Minister of causing sedition.
Khatami said the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal had better mobilize the Islamic world against Israel and not against Iran, adding that al-Faisal overstated the intimidation from Tehran. Khatami even said this was a Zionist scheme.
Khatami criticized what he described as the insults and assaults against the Shiites by Wahhabis and extremists in Saudi Arabia. For his part, the Moroccan Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi Fihri said the decision to sever diplomatic ties with Iran was a legitimate, normal and logical reaction.
Fihri added that Morocco was the only country whose chargé d'affaires in Tehran was summoned after he expressed his solidarity with Bahrain and its territorial integrity.
Meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has announced that Morocco's decision was sudden and questionable. The Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham denied any disagreement with Morocco, describing the reports on broken off relations as incitement from tendentious people.
