Makkah, June 1: Arab and Gulf allies have on Friday rallied around Saudi Arabia as it ratcheted up frictions with its regional arch-rival Iran after few attacks on oil facilities, including drone attacks, drawing allegations from Tehran of sowing division.
According to Dawn news reports, Iran, which has reiterated its denial to any involvement in any of the attacks off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has expressed its disappointment that Saudi Arabia planned to impose the same “baseless accusations” on Tehran during a meeting on the sidelines of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit on Saturday.
Riyadh King Salman has called on Arab and Gulf allies to confront Tehran’s “criminal acts” after unexplained sabotage attacks off the UAE coasts that damaged four vessels – two vessels were Saudi oil tankers – and two drone attacks that closed a key Saudi oil pipeline claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebel group.
Arab leaders issue a joint statement and condemned “acts by the terrorist Houthi militias supported by Iran who [sent] aircraft that crossed into Saudi Arabia to two oil pumping stations and acts of sabotage that affected commercial ships in territorial waters of the United Arab Emirates”.
They have said Tehran’s behaviour poses a “direct and serious threat” and called on the international community to take a firm stand to confront Iran and its destabilizing acts in the region.
A joint statement issued by Gulf allies went on to continue criticizing the landmark international nuclear agreement, INF treaty, that was inked in 2015 to curb Iranian nuclear programme in turn of sanctions relief between major powers and Tehran voiced by United States President Donald Trump when he withdrew American out of the pat last year in May.
Gulf leaders called on Iran to “stay away from hostile, destabilizing acts”. They urged the international community to take “more serious and effective steps to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear capabilities and to impose stricter restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile programme”.
They also stressed the importance of bolstering US-Gulf cooperation in the framework of the strategic and diplomatic partnership that has been strongly promoted by the Trump administration.
Riyadh hosted the two summits of Arab and Gulf leaders in a bid to show a united front, but Iraq, which caught in the middle of two allies – Iran and the US- revoked the Arab nations’ final statement.