Amir Abdollahian, Deputy Foreign Minister at the time, reminisces of the occupation of the Saudi embassy in Tehran, January 2, 2016

At around 12:00 p.m., our ambassador, Mr. Hossein Sadeghi, called me from Riyadh and said that Saudi Foreign Ministry officials had called me and said that our embassy had been attacked. As Mr. Sadeghi heard our voices, I informed the Deputy Minister of Security of the Ministry of Interior about the matter and told them that they had such a claim.

He said that based on the news we have, this is not the case, of course, some incendiary materials have been thrown into the embassy, but now the environment is not a problem and all the demonstrators have left. But at around 1:30 a.m., after everything had calmed down, a small group had entered the embassy through another door.

Thinking that everything was over, a part of our security forces had withdrawn, to the extent that now people have demonstrated and thrown two or three incendiary materials into the embassy yard and left.

But I was informed that another group had entered. When I contacted the deputy of security, they said that unfortunately, a group of security forces had taken the security forces by surprise and entered the building through the back door and caused some damage to the embassy.