Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is expected to travel to Saudi Arabia and Iran Monday, in an effort to alleviate inflamed tensions between the two regional rivals after the Sunni kingdom’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric sparked a divide across the Muslim world, pitting Sunnis against Shiites.
The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia remains strong despite Washington’s outreach to the Sunni Kingdom’s regional rival Iran, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir asserted Thursday.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Rep. Robert Pittenger wrote a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, co-signed by 49 of his Republican colleagues in the House, urging him to “reconsider” the Obama administration’s “strategic alignment with the Iranian government” in the wake of the Islamic Republic’s capture of 10 U.S. Navy sailors and Tehran’s recent illegal ballistic missile tests.
The government of Saudi Arabia has reportedly released Samar Badawi, a prominent human rights activist who received the “International Woman of Courage Award” in 2012 from then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
On Sunday, dozens of Muslims in San Jose participated in a protest condemning the execution of a prominent Saudi Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr Bagher al-Nimr, by the Saudi government on New Year’s Eve.
On Monday, a group calling itself the Universal Muslim Association of America (UMAA) launched an unusual protest against the Saudi Arabian government’s execution of Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, asking people to inundate the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington D.C. with potatoes.
