Mohammad Javad Zarif

Saudi Arabia through its minister of state for foreign affairs has on Tuesday criticised Iran for implicating Riyadh in the killing of prominent Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Iran has through it s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif had in a comment on Monday suggested that a covert meeting in Saudi Arabia between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contributed to the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

But the Saudi foreign minister in reaction rejected Iran’s implication of Saudi Arabia saying: ‘Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif is desperate to blame the Kingdom for anything negative that happens in Iran. Will he blame us for the next earthquake or flood?’ minister Adel Al-Jubeir said in a tweet.

Mohammad Javad Zarif had on Monday made an Instagram post suggesting that a trilateral meeting between U.S Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Saudi Arabia and Israel Netanyahu was linked to the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

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The post reads: ‘(U.S. Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo’s hurried trips to the region, the trilateral meeting in Saudi Arabia and Netanyahu’s statements all point to this conspiracy that unfortunately emerged in Friday’s cowardly terrorist act and the martyrdom of one of the country’s top executives, Zarif wrote on Instagram.

A senior Iranian official has said that Tehran suspects a foreign-based opposition group of complicity with Israel in the killing of Fakhrizadeh, whom Western powers see as the architect of an abandoned Iranian nuclear weapons programme.

The group rejected the accusation. Netanyahu’s office has declined to comment on the killing. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia are currently pushing anti-Iran rhetoric as Iran is locked in several proxy wars with Riyadh in the region.

Saudi Arabia has not formally condemned the assassination, unlike the other five Gulf Cooperation Council member countries.

Although Riyadh’s United Nations envoy in an interview with Russian broadcaster RT on Tuesday, said the kingdom ‘did not support the policy of assassinations at all.’

 

AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK