MBS Says He Wants Good Relations With Iran
Prince Muhammad said in an interview on Saudi television late on Tuesday that Riyadh did not want "the situation with Iran to be difficult” and wanted to build a "good and positive relationship” with the Islamic Republic.
"We are working now with our partners in the region and the world to find solutions for these problems,” he said. "At the end of the day, Iran is a neighboring country. All what we ask for is to have a good and distinguished relationship with Iran.”
Prince Muhammad, the kingdom’s day-to-day leader, has regularly railed against Iran, accusing the republic of stoking conflict in the Middle East and seeking to destabilize Saudi Arabia.
He was a staunch backer of former president Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from the nuclear deal Iran signed with world countries and impose the most inhuman sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
As Riyadh backed Trump’s maximum pressure campaign, the former U.S. president stood by Prince Muhammad after the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents triggered the kingdom’s biggest diplomatic crisis in decades.
The Saudi crown prince sought to play down the diplomatic crisis which he created by severing relations with Iran in January 2016 following angry protests outside the kingdom’s embassy in Tehran against the execution of prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, saying Riyadh had differences even with its allies.
"There is no such thing as a completely 100 percent agreement between two countries, even with the [Persian] Gulf countries, the closest ones,” he said. "There usually are some kind of differences, which is something you’d find in the same house, where brothers don’t agree 100 per cent on everything.”
There has been speculation that Riyadh has been keen to reduce tension with Iran since a missile and drone attack in September 2019 temporarily knocked out half of the kingdom’s crude oil output. Houthi fighters and their allies in the Yemeni army claimed responsibility for the attack.
The crown prince told Al Arabiya TV that his country wanted Iran to help push the Middle East towards prosperity. The comments are a far cry from his infamous threat once to wage war inside Iran and squeeze the country economically and politically.
Diplomats say Saudi Arabia is serious about its desire to exit the war in Yemen, where it backs the former government that stepped down in 2015. Yemenis have stepped up their attacks on Saudi Arabia this year. Prince Muhammad repeated a Saudi offer of a ceasefire in Yemen as long as the Yemeni sides agreed to a truce and to participate in negotiations.
Asked about the war in Yemen, which has caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, the crown prince said that no country wanted an armed militia along its borders.
In an opinion piece, the occupying regime of Israel’s leading daily
Haaretz said the Saudi overtures are "a potent sign of Riyadh’s desperation”.
Saudi Arabia appears bogged down in Yemen more than any time after six years of war which it launched with a projection to beat the impoverished country into submission within weeks.
Yemeni armed forces, however, have gone from strength to strength and stepped up retaliatory missile and drone attacks against targets deep inside Saudi Arabia in recent months.
Saudi Airbase Targeted in
Drone Strike
Yemen’s forces on Wednesday launched a drone at a military airbase in the southern Saudi Arabian city of Khamis Mushait, a military spokesman said on Twitter.
Yemen’s defense forces have advanced to as far as only two kilometers from the strategic west-central city of Ma’rib, the gateway to potential liberation of much more of their homeland amid an ongoing Saudi Arabia-led aggression.
The Unews website, which covers regional developments especially those of Yemen, reported the victory on Tuesday, saying the forces were now only two kilometers (1.2 miles) away from the city’s entrance.
Yemeni military sources said the lightning advances had taken the ranks of Saudi-led mercenaries apart, forcing them to move their military equipment outside the city and try to set up some bases there.
Yemeni political expert Brigadier General Abed al-Thawr told Press TV that Ma’rib serves as the key to liberation of all the eastern and southern provinces.”
Ma’rib practically gives the Yemeni defense forces entry into Shabwah, Hadarmaut, and al-Mahrah as well as the entire northern border stretch with Saudi Arabia, he said.
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