{"id":39774,"date":"2019-06-17T11:22:33","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T11:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=39774"},"modified":"2019-06-17T11:22:33","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T11:22:33","slug":"saudi-crown-prince-pompeo-send-a-message-to-iran-end-hostility-or-pay-the-price","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=39774","title":{"rendered":"Saudi crown prince, Pompeo send a message to Iran: End hostility or pay the price"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nJEDDAH: The US will take all actions necessary \u2014 \u201cdiplomatic and otherwise\u201d \u2014 to deter Iran from disrupting Gulf energy supplies, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\nPompeo spoke hours after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said the Kingdom would \u201cnot hesitate in dealing with any threat against our people, sovereignty and vital interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe twin warnings to the regime in Tehran followed last week\u2019s attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, widely assumed to have been carried out by Iran.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe don\u2019t want war. We\u2019ve done what we can to deter it,\u201d Pompeo said in a TV interview. \u201cBut the Iranians should understand very clearly that we will continue to take actions that deter Iran from engaging in this kind of behavior.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat you should assume is we are going to guarantee freedom of navigation throughout the Strait of Hormuz. This is an international challenge, important to the entire globe. The US is going to make sure that we take all the actions necessary, diplomatic and otherwise, that achieve that outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nPompeo said the US was discussing a possible international response, and he had made a number of calls to foreign officials about the tanker attacks.<\/p>\n

\nHe said China, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia relied heavily on freedom of navigation through the strait. \u201cI\u2019m confident that when they see the risk, the risk to their own economies and their own people, and outrageous behavior of Iran, they will join us in this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe Saudi crown prince, in an interview with the Arabic-language newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, said the Kingdom had \u201csupported the re-imposition of US sanctions on Iran out of our belief that the international community needed to take a decisive stance against Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nHe hoped the Iranian regime \u201cwould opt to become a normal state and cease its hostile policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nCrown Prince Mohammed said the Kingdom\u2019s hand was always extended for peace, but the Iranian regime had disrespected the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during his visit to Tehran by attacking the two oil tankers in the Gulf, one of which was Japanese.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt also employed its militias to carry out a\u00a0shameful\u00a0attack against Abha International Airport. This is clear evidence of the Iranian regime\u2019s policy and intentions to target the security and stability of the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe crown prince said the attacks \u201cunderscore the importance of our demand before the international community to take a decisive stance against an expansionist regime that has supported terrorism and spread death and destruction over the past decades, not only in the region, but the whole world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nPrince Mohammed\u2019s interview was \u201ca message to Tehran, and beyond Tehran, to the international community,\u201d the Saudi political analyst and international relations scholar\u00a0Dr. Hamdan Al-Shehri told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHe sent out the message that we do not want a war in the region. He was offering peace, as is our nature, and that is what we are doing now. But if it is going to affect our vital interests, our vital resources and our people, we will defend ourselves and take action to handle any threat. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe are facing aggressive, barbaric and terrorist threats from Iran, and we must take rapid and decisive action against that. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is sending a message to the world that there must be a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nMeanwhile, the Netehrland\u2019s Foreign Minister Stef Blok\u00a0said the tanker attack was unacceptable and the future of the nuclear agreement depends on Iran’s complicity.<\/p>\n

\nIn the United Kingdom, Government Minister Harriett Baldwin said they\u00a0are almost certain that Iran is behind the tanker attack on Monday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JEDDAH: The US will take all actions necessary \u2014 \u201cdiplomatic and otherwise\u201d \u2014 to deter Iran from disrupting Gulf energy supplies, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned on Sunday. Pompeo spoke hours after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said the Kingdom would \u201cnot hesitate in dealing with any threat against our people, sovereignty…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":39775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}