Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud yesterday urged the world to take “a decisive stance” to address efforts by Iran to develop nuclear and ballistic missile programs, in an annual address to the Shara Council, the top government advisory body.
“The kingdom stresses the dangers of Iran’s regional project, its interference in other countries, its fostering of terrorism, its fanning the flames of sectarianism and calls for a decisive stance from the international community against Iran that guarantees a drastic handling of its efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction and develop its ballistic missiles program,” the king said.
They were the 84-year-old ruler’s first public remarks since he addressed the UN General Assembly in September via videolink, when he also took aim at Iran.
Photo: Reuters
Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran are locked in a decades-long struggle for influence across the region, supporting opposing sides in conflicts from Syria to Yemen.
There was no immediate reaction from Iran to the king’s remarks. Tehran has previously described Saudi Arabian statements against it as “baseless allegations” and denies arming groups in the Middle East.
The Saudi Press Agency published a full transcript of the king’s speech.
State TV carried photographs of what appeared to be the king virtually addressing council members from his palace in NEOM.
Tensions have risen in the region since US President Donald Trump in 2018 pulled the US out of a nuclear deal with world powers and reimposed economic sanctions on Iran.
US president-elect Joe Biden in his campaign pledged to reassess ties with the kingdom, a major oil exporter and buyer of US arms.
Saudi Arabia was an enthusiastic backer of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, but Biden has said he would return to a 2015 nuclear pact between world powers and Tehran, a deal negotiated when Biden was vice president in then-US president Barack Obama’s administration.
In Yemen, where Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition battling the Iran-aligned Houthis in a nearly six-year war that has killed tens of thousands of people, King Salman said that the kingdom continues to support UN-led efforts to reach a political settlement.
He also condemned the Iran-aligned Houthi movement’s “deliberate and methodological” targeting of civilians inside Saudi Arabia via drones and ballistic missiles.
Riyadh was working to guarantee the stability of global oil supplies to serve producers and consumers, despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on markets, the king said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not