Saudi Arabia and Iran owe it to the international community to put aside their differences in the Middle East and focus on opposing the styled Islamic State militant group, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. Saudi Arabia cut its ties with Iran on Sunday in response to the storming of its embassy in Tehran in an escalating row between the two Middle East powers over Riyadh’s execution of the prominent Shia Muslim cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. Steinmeier urged both countries to show responsibility and focus on calming the region and opposing the terrorist group he referred to by the acronym ISIS, the newspaper Bild reported. “I hope that the turbulence will soon end, reason prevails and Riyadh and Tehran focus on what’s really important, defusing military conflicts, fostering political solutions in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere and thus pulling the rug out from under ISIS,” he told Bild in an interview published on Tuesday. “The whole Middle East, and especially Saudi Arabia and Iran, are somewhat indebted to us. The international community has worked extensively for years to bring peace to the interrelated conflicts in the region.”
