Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, confirmed that Saudi officials close to Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman plotted to assassinate senior Iranian officials.
“Tehran had credible information on this,” Zarif told the New Arab’s Arabic-language service in an interview, which will be published in full on Tuesday.
The minister was referring to a report published on Sunday in The New York Times that detailed a plan to hire private operatives to kill senior Iranian officials, including Major General Qassem Suleimani.
He further exemplified other atrocities by the Saudi government, including support for terrorism, attacking Yemen as well as blockading Qatar and kidnapping Lebanese Prime minister Saad Hariri.
“All the world has opened its eyes to what Riyadh is doing such as blockading Qatar, bombing Yemen, detaining the prime minister of Lebanon and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” Zarif said according to Tasnim news agency.
The New York Times report revealed a March 2017 meeting in Riyadh that brought together businessmen that also “pitched a $2 billion plan to use private intelligence operatives to sabotage the Iranian economy.”
As the meeting came at a time that bin Salman was consolidating his power in the kingdom, the report concluded that planning for assassinations, like that of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, started “since the beginning of Prince Mohammad’s ascent.”
Source: Iranian media
