Pressure on Iran will help avoid war, Saudi crown prince tells WSJ

Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman called on the international community to pressure Iran economically and politically over its nuclear agreement to avoid a direct military confrontation in the region.

“Sanctions will create more pressure on the Iranian regime,” the crown prince said during an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Friday, explaining that efforts must be made to avoid a military conflict in the region caused by Iran.

Iran has supplied the Houthi militia in Yemen with weapons used against Saudi Arabia over the past three years, the crown prince explained during the interview.

Since the war in Yemen began, the Houthi militia group has fired several ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia.

However, the crown prince stated that these attacks were “evidence of weakness.”

In response to a question on Saudi Arabia’s intervention in the country, the crown prince said: “Yemen was about to get split between the Houthis and Al-Qaeda if we had not intervened in 2015.”