Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei described Iraq as an "important" and "influential" country among Muslim and Arab states, noting, "In view of its position in the region, Iraq can certainly play an effective role with regard to regional issues, and this potential should be exploited more than before."
In a meeting with the visiting Iraqi President Fuad Masum on Wednesday he said the relationship between Iran and Iraq is "deep" and "brotherly", welcoming the growing trend of bilateral relations. He also expressed the Islamic Republic's readiness to provide assistance to Iraq to help the country make progress and promote its stability.
The Saudis made a grave error in Yemen and will pay for the consequences of their airstrikes on the impoverished country, the Leader stressed.
Elaborating on the crisis in the war-ravaged Arab country, he said, "Developments in Yemen demonstrate that an ideology that is reckless and ignorant among the Saudis decides for Yemen.
They (House of Saud) made a grave error in Yemen and the crimes they commit will certainly come to haunt them," the Leader said, his website reported.
He singled out Riyadh's ongoing war against the Houthis as idiotic and said," They attacked Yemen on the premise that the fugitive president of that country, who fled at the most sensitive time, had asked them to do so."
The remarks by the Iraqi president and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani at a joint press conference held earlier in the day have been covered in a separate article on page two.
