Iran ‘rejected our hand of peace’ • •
In powerful first address to UN, Saudi King Salman blames ‘malign’ Tehran regime for regional chaos Monarch demands disarming of Hezbollah, urges ‘fair and comprehensive’ Palestinian-Israeli deal
The Kingdom’s hands were extended to Iran in peace with a positive and open attitude over the past decades, but to no avail.
Iran has spurned Saudi reconciliation efforts and is now the region’s leading source of
“chaos, extremism, and sectarianism,” King Salman said on Wednesday.
In a powerful inaugural address to the UN General Assembly in New York, the Saudi monarch called for a comprehensive solution to the Tehran regime’s activities, demanded that Hezbollah be disarmed, and supported US efforts to bring Palestinians and Israelis to the negotiating table.
“Our region has been suffering for many decades from attempts by the forces of extremism and chaos … to impose their malign views and policies in order to hijack these countries’ present and future,” the king said in a recorded video message.
“The Kingdom’s hands were extended to Iran in peace with a positive and open attitude over the past decades, but to no avail.”
Iran had exploited the 2015 agreement to curb its nuclear program “in order to intensify its expansionist activities, create its terrorist networks and use terrorism, in the process squandering the resources and wealth of the Iranian
people for the purpose of its expansionist projects which produced nothing but chaos, extremism, and sectarianism,” the king said.
He said Tehran and its proxy militias had targeted the Kingdom with over 300 ballistic missiles and more than 400 armed drones. “Our experience with the Iranian regime has taught us that partial solutions and appeasement did not stop its threats to international peace and security. “A comprehensive solution and a firm international position are required to ensure fundamental solutions to the Iranian regime’s attempt to obtain weapons of mass destruction, its ballistic missile program, its interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and its sponsorship of terrorism.” The king said the explosion at the Beirut port in August, which killed 190 people and devastated swaths of the Lebanese capital, was a result of Iran-backed Hezbollah’s domination of Lebanon’s decision-making process by force of arms. “In order for the fraternal people of Lebanon to achieve their aspirations of security, stability, and prosperity, this terrorist organization must be disarmed,” he said.
King Salman said peace in the Middle East was “our strategic option,” and the Kingdom supported “the efforts of the current US administration to … bring the Palestinians and the Israelis to the negotiating table to reach a fair and comprehensive agreement.”
King Salman is only the second Saudi monarch to address the UN; his late brother, King Saud, did so in 1957.