Iran to rename street after executed Saudi cleric

TEHRAN: Iran will rename a street in its capital after Saudi cleric Nimr al-Nimr, whose execution in January prompted protests across the country, ISNA news agency said on Thursday.

It said Tehran’s city council decided that Naz Street, a central thoroughfare where the Saudi embassy is situated, would be named after Nimr, who was put to death along with 46 other "terror" convicts on a single day in Saudi Arabia.

His execution triggered a diplomatic crisis between Iran and Saudi Arabia after protesters ransacked Riyadh’s embassy in Tehran and stormed its consulate in second city Mashhad. Nimr was a prominent figure in 2011 demonstrations in the kingdom’s east.

The deterioration in ties between the Middle East’s leading powers raised sectarian tensions across the region and complicated efforts to resolve conflicts in Syria and Yemen.