Iranian diplomats leave Saudi Arabia

Iranian diplomats have left Saudi Arabia and returned to Tehran after the kingdom severed ties with the Islamic Republic.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency reports that staff at the Iranian Embassy in Riyadh and the Iranian Consulate in Jiddah had left the country. State media in Iran shows still photographs it said were of the diplomats arriving in Tehran on a Meraj Airlines jet.

Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties to Iran over the storming of two diplomatic posts in the country following the kingdom’s execution of a top Shiite cleric who was also an opposition figure.

Several Saudi allies have followed the kingdom’s lead and scaled back or cut diplomatic ties to Iran.

— AP