Foreign Ministry:

Saudi, Israeli anti-Iran stance no coincidence

Rasa - Tehran says it is not a matter of chance that Israel and Saudi Arabia share an anti-Iran stance as there is ample evidence that the two regimes are working hand in glove in different regional cases.

News ID: 427532

Date: 20 February 2017 - 22:55

RNA - Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi was responding to the remarks by the Saudi foreign minister and the Israeli minister for military affairs, who directed separate but notably similar tirades against the Islamic Republic at the 53rd Munich Security Conference on Sunday.

“The parallelism between the positions of the Saudi foreign minister and the Israeli war minister on Iran is not coincidental. Many instances of evidence indicate coordination between the two regimes in regional cases,” he added.

Addressing the Munich conference, the Saudi and Israeli ministers, Adel al-Jubeir and Avigdor Lieberman, claimed Iran is a supporter of “terrorism” and constitutes the “main threat” to the region. They also attacked Iran’s 2015 nuclear agreement with the P5+1 group of states, calling for an international push against the Islamic Republic.

Jubeir spurned a call by Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif for dialog among the Persian Gulf’s littoral states towards the elimination of common problems. Lieberman tried to endear Israel to Riyadh by considering Saudi Arabia to be a member of “the moderate Arab world.”

Qassemi further lashed out at the the claims, which, he said, reflected “a painful [state of] desperation” in Riyadh and Tel Aviv.

“Both regimes think they should stir the international atmosphere against Iran as a means of making up for their multitudinous defeats and frustrations in the region,” he asserted.

The accusations by the Saudi top diplomat about Iran’s alleged link to “terrorism,” he added, “can never throw into oblivion the ideological, training, financial, and intelligence ties between the Saudi establishment and Takfiri terrorists, whose crimes against the region and the world’s innocent people are known to all.”

He also called it “pathetic” that the Israeli regime has turned to a Muslim country to advance its unwavering anti-Iran policies.

Both the regimes in Tel Aviv and Riyadh are widely viewed as staunch supporters of the militant groups operating in Syria to topple its government.

Daesh, the world’s most notorious terror group mainly active in Syria and Iraq, is inspired by Wahhabism, which is a radical Takfiri ideology dominating Saudi Arabia and freely preached by Riyadh-backed clerics there.

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