Saudi Arabia’s King Salman opened an emergency summit of Arab leaders in Mecca with a call for the international community to use all means to confront Iran.
SUADI ARABIA URGES INTERNATIONAL ATTEMPT TO THWART IRAN
Iranian attacks on Gulf targets must be met with ‘strength and firmness,’ Saudi Arabia’s King Salman tells Gulf leaders at summit.
The summits came a day after hawkish US National Security Advisor John Bolton said Iran was almost certainly behind this month’s sabotage of four ships, including two Saudi oil tankers, off the UAE coast. Iran rejected the charge.
Tensions have also spiked between Tehran and Washington in recent weeks, with the US sending an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of arming Yemeni rebels behind the pipeline attack. Iran denies being involved in the incidents.
In his opening remarks, King Salman called on the international community to thwart Iran’s behaviors and for “using all means to stop the Iranian regime from interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, harboring global and regional terrorist entities and threatening international waterways.” “I would like to reconfirm our absolute rejection of the American attempts to bring down international law and international legitimacy under what is called the ‘Deal of the Century’,” Salman said, adding that it attempts to replace “land for peace” with “land for prosperity”.
Iraq, meanwhile, struck a sharply different tone. President Barham Salih said in his remarks that Iran is a Muslim country and neighbor. “We do not hope for its security to be targeted since we are sharing 1,400 kilometers of border and a number of relations,” he told the gathering of Arab League heads of state.