MOSCOW: Moscow cannot allow the situation in Yemen to turn into an open conflict between the Arabs and Iran, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.
"It should not be allowed to deteriorate into a Sunni-Shia standoff," Tass news agency quoted Lavrov as saying.
"We have been warning about the serious threat of such a split inside Islam from the very start of the Arab Spring. We were not heard very well, or maybe we were heard, but they just chose not to take this into consideration. We cannot allow this situation to turn into an attempt to unleash an open conflict between the Arabs and Iran," the Russian foreign minister said.