BICOM

Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi Ambassador to Washington and head of Saudi intelligence, has said that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia will also seek to do so, according to a report in the Guardian today. In a speech given to senior NATO officials at RAF Molesworth near Cambridge, Prince Turki said that the existence of an Iranian nuclear capacity would compel Riyadh to adopt ‘policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences.” An un-named Saudi official who spoke to the Guardian later confirmed that this statement meant that if Iran developed a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia would follow suit.

In his speech, Turki placed the nuclear issue within the larger context of Iranian regional interference and ambitions. He described Teheran as a ‘paper tiger with steel claws’ that was ‘meddling and destabilising’ across the region. The Saudis are known to be extremely concerned both at Iranian regional ambitions and at what they regard as an insufficient Western response. In recent months, this has led to independent Saudi initiatives such as the entry of the ‘Peninsula Shield’ force into Bahrain, to put down what Riyadh regarded as an Iranian-supported Shia rebellion in that country.