Iran’s regime has declared that the Saudi Arabian monarchy has turned the kingdom into a “second Israel”.
Tehran put out its latest denunciation of the Saudis, who broke diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic in January 2016, through Secretary of the Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei.
Rezaei issued a statement about Saudi military intervention in Yemen’s civil war since March 2015, claiming 32,000 civilians killed or injured and 4,000 residential houses destroyed. He blamed Riyadh for 240,000 people infected with cholera as schools, mosques, and hospitals were bombed.
The Tehran Friday Prayer Leader, Ayatollah Kazem Seddiqi, reinforced the message of “oppression of people in the Arabian Peninsula” by the monarchies of Saudi Arabia and its ally Bahrain. He said Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh in late May had bolstered that opporession, and criticized international bodies for silence over the matter
The long-standing tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the region, escalating since the cut-off of diplomatic links 18 months ago, has been reinforced recently by statements on both sides. After the new Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, warned in May that the next battles would be fought inside Iran, Tehran’s officials — including the Supreme Leader — have focused on a supposed US-Israeli-Saudi axis bringing turmoil to the region and trying to overthrow the Islamic Republic.
Ayatollah Khamenei maintained last month that the US had created the Islamic State for the effort:
It is the US and the US agents who have destabilized the region. They have destabilized North Africa, West Asia, Syria and Iraq in different ways. Destabilizing the region means funding and creating a terrorist group, giving weapons to it, reinforcing and drawing military plans for it and curing its injured individuals in hospitals.
