BREAKING NEWS

Saudi Arabia's defense minister sees no chance for dialog with Iran

By REUTERS

MAY 2, 2017 16:00

DUBAI - Saudi Arabia's powerful deputy crown prince has ruled out any dialog with Iran, a country he said was busy plotting to control the Muslim world.

Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi defense minister, said in a TV interview to be broadcast later on Tuesday his country could crush Iran-aligned fighters in Yemen where Saudi forces head a coalition of Gulf Arab states intervening in a civil war.

Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite Iran compete for influence in the Middle East, supporting rival groups in Syria's civil war. In Yemen, Iran denies providing financial or military support to the Houthis who are fighting government forces allied with Saudi Arabia.

Asked if Saudi Arabia was ready to open a direct dialog with Tehran, Mohammed said it was impossible to talk with a power that was planning for the return of the Imam Mahdi - whom Shi'ites believe was a descendant of the Prophet who went into hiding 1,000 years ago and will return to establish global Islamic rule before the end of the world.

"How do you have a dialog with this (Iran)?" Mohammed said in clips of the interview posted on social media.

"Its (Iran's) logic is that the Imam Mahdi will come and they must prepare the fertile environment for the arrival of the awaited Mahdi and they must control the Muslim world."

Under Iran's constitution since the 1979 revolution, the country's supreme leader is the earthly representative of the Imam until his return.

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