LONDON: Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir has said that if Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz there will be a “very, very strong reaction.”
In a press meeting with Arab and international media outlets on the sidelines of his official visit to London, Al-Jubeir said that “calm is required in the region, but we cannot reach that end as Iran’s hostile behavior has inflicted a great deal of harm.”
He stressed that the Kingdom did not want a war with Iran but that the international community was determined to confront aggressive Iranian behavior.
Al-Jubeir affirmed that the Kingdom was consulting with allies to secure water corridors and was exploring several options. He said that there was sufficient evidence to blame Iran over the recent attacks on oil tankers.
Iranian hostilities on maritime navigation affected the world, he said. The attacks on four oil tankers off UAE’s Fujairah port and two tankers in the Gulf of Oman were acts of sabotage which Iran was accused of being involved in. He called on Iran to change its hostile behavior, stop supporting terrorism and return to being a normal state.
Al-Jubeir said that it was absurd to imagine that any party was trying to drag major powers into a war with Iran.
On a judgment issued by the UK Supreme Court to review the licenses to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, Al-Jubeir explained that the British ruling on arms sales is procedural and an internal matter.
