An Iranian newspaper will be summoned to court in Tehran for printing headlines deemed insulting to Saudi Arabia’s ill King Abdullah.

The King is currently being treated for pneumonia in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, according to AFP.

According to the agency, the offending paper, Vatan-e-Emrooz, published a headline with the Persian expression “Khabar-e-Margesh” which translates as "may I hear the news of his death," over a picture of the king. Abdullah is more than 90 years old.

According to the Mehr news agency, the paper protested to Iran's media regulator regarding the summons, contending that the king’s health has attracted massive press coverage and is a legitimate issue to speculate on.

Its editor was unapologetic, calling the headline, "a colloquial expression in our culture which in this case was used against one of the most hostile enemies of the people of Iran and whose hands are stained with the blood of tens of thousands of innocent people in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen," AFP reported.

Mustafa Fahs, a political analyst and columnist at As-Sharq al-Awsat, spoke to NOW about the intent and effects of the headline and summons.

“There are protocols that organize ties between states, and the regime in Tehran knows that attacking the regime of a country has a different impact than attacking the figures in power. There are political, social, and family customs in Saudi Arabia, which are intolerant of any attack against the king, and this is what the Iranian paper has done. It will be considered by the Saudis to be a blatant violation.”

“The Iranian judiciary’s step is purely political, because there have been several other infringements by Iranian institutions that enjoy the protection of ruling figures.”

Saudi Arabia and Iran are longstanding regional rivals, and their relationship worsened when they backed opposing belligerents in Syria’s bloody civil war. Iran directly supports the Assad regime, while Saudi has supported the largely Sunni rebels.

Recently Iran has sought to improve ties with Saudi Arabia, but the steep decline of oil prices has dramatically affected the Iranian economy, which was already straining from the sanctions imposed for its nuclear program.

"Those that have planned to decrease the prices against other countries will regret this decision," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday, according to Reuters.

“If Iran suffers from the drop in oil prices, know that other oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will suffer more than Iran."

Fahs believes the crackdown on the paper serves a dual purpose. “This step has two goals, [firstly] to avoid reaching a dead-end in its ties with Saudi Arabia and the ruling family, and to soothe the atmosphere with Riyadh, despite the Iranian President’s statement against Saudi Arabia’s oil policy; and second, the Iranian economic crisis - caused by the decrease of oil prices - requires an ability to compromise with Saudi Arabia, and the newspaper’s extremism comes at the wrong time for Iran on both the internal and external level.”

“This is why the newspaper was sued, as a message of goodwill from Tehran to the Saudi ruling family.”