A lawmaker says the recurring anti-Iran accusations by Saudi officials are borne out of a sense of “frustration”.
Principlist Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, spokesman of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, made the statement in an interview with ICANA on Friday.
He was referring to recent claims by the Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir denouncing Tehran for what he called “efforts to destabilize the Middle East”.
Naqavi Hosseini said the kingdom has spent huge amounts of money to advance its overt and covert interests in the region, but it now feels that all that was indeed an exercise in futility.
“The Saudi condition is getting worse. They are indulging in such divisionary tactics to deflect attention from their setbacks and failures.”
The embattled oil kingdom has come under severe pressure in recent months, including from its close western allies, over its failed Yemen policy. Riyadh has also been accused of bankrolling terrorist groups and supporting ultra-rightist Salafi and Wahhabi fanatics spreading death and destruction across continents.
Speaking at a press conference in Paris with French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on Tuesday, the visibly agitated Jubeir claimed, “The entire world knows that Iran is working to destabilize our region.”
Iran and Saudi Arabia do not diplomatic relations and are at opposing sides of the conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, among other Middle East crises.
