Saudi officials should watch their mouth and stop spreading blatant lies as making rude remarks could cost them their credibility, an Iranian diplomat says.
An unnamed foreign ministry official made the comment in response to derogatory remarks by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir at a recent joint press briefing with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Riyadh, IRNA reported.
Commenting on "barefaced" lies circulated by Jubeir, the official warned the "nervous, inexperienced and inexpert" Saudi diplomat to be more courteous because such talks may exhaust Iranians' patience.
"Such repeated and baseless accusations are worth neither denying nor defending politically," the diplomat asserted, reiterating that Jubeir, who has spent a long time in the US, seems to have gotten used to their special political rhetoric.
"Jubeir is apparently oblivious to the fact that the Saudi-led coalition's brutal airstrikes and indiscriminate bombings of residential areas in Yemen for over seven months have slaughtered over 6,000 people and injured about 15,000," he noted.
Jubeir's Charges
The Saudi minister urged Iran to stop "meddling" in the affairs of the kingdom's neighbors, saying that Riyadh stood ready to confront Tehran's actions.
"Iran openly backs President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian war and is accused of also being behind rebels who overran large parts of Yemen last year and early this year. We wish that Iran would change its policies and stop meddling in the affairs of other countries in the region, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen," Jubeir said.
"It is difficult to have positive relations [with Tehran] when Saudi Arabia and its people are the target of [alleged] continuous aggression [from Iran]."
Accusing Iran of acting like a "colonizing state" in Syria, the Saudi official demanded that Iran pull its fighters out of the Arab country and stop supplying arms to the Syrian government forces.
According to Hojjatollah Khodaei, an Iranian lawmaker, such "cheap" remarks are made with the aim of diverting attention from the Sept. 24 crush tragedy near Mecca during the Hajj pilgrimage which claimed the lives of over 450 Iranians.
Khodaei believes that Jubeir is too immature and unprincipled to comment on regional issues.
