Saudi Arabia angered by Zarif’s remarks about assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists

The Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs has hit out at Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran after the latter implicated Riyadh — along with Israel and the US — in an anti-Iran psychological operation that led up to the assassination of senior nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Adel al-Jubeir, in a post published on his Twitter page on Tuesday, claimed that the chief diplomat was “desperate” to blame the Riyadh regime in anything negative that happened in Iran. 

“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?,” Jubeir wrote.

The Saudi minister’s rant came after Zarif said in an Instagram post on Monday night that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent tour of the region, his tripartite meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as well as Netanyahu’s recent remarks were signs of yet another conspiracy against the Islamic Republic, which unfortunately came to light with Fakhrizadeh’s assassination.

“A counter-intelligence campaign and purposeful psychological warfare were launched in tandem with this terrorist act, in the delusive hope that the evil plans of Pompeo, Netanyahu and bin Salman to create tensions would materialize,” Zarif’s post read.

Fakhrizadeh, who headed the Iranian Defense Ministry’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (known by its acronym SPND), was targeted on November 27 in a terrorist attack.

Zarif: Iranians won't be deceived by final machinations of intl. terrorists, Zionist warmongers

Zarif says Iranian officials and nation will never be deceived by the final struggles of international terrorists and extremist warmongers.

Unlike other regional countries, including its allies at the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Saudi Arabia has refused to condemn the assassination of the senior Iranian physicist.

Abdallah al-Mouallimi, permanent representative of the kingdom to the United Nations, however, claimed during an interview with Russian RT television news network on Tuesday that his country “did not support the policy of assassinations at all.”

It is not the first time that the Islamic Republic finds Saudi Arabia’s footprints in terrorist operations on Iranian soil.

Back on June 10, Denmark called in the Saudi ambassador to Copenhagen to protest the kingdom’s support for a terrorist group behind a 2018 deadly attack in Iran’s southwestern city of Ahvaz, among its other terrorist crimes against Iranians.

Riyadh’s envoy was summoned after terrorism charges were leveled against three leaders of the anti-Iran al-Ahvaziya terror group based in Denmark.

Denmark summons Saudi envoy over Riyadh's support for anti-Iran terror group

Denmark calls in Saudi Arabia

In September 2018, the Saudi-backed terror outfit claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a military parade in Ahvaz, Khuzestan’s provincial capital. The assault killed 25 people, including members of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and civilian bystanders, and injured 70 others.

Shortly after the attack, the London-based “Iran International” television channel funded by Saudi Arabia allowed the al-Ahvaziya spokesman to go live on air to defend the bloodshed.

Iran recently arrested the mastermind of that attack, Farajollah Chaab, on the back of a complicated intelligence operation.

Iran arrests ringleader of militant group behind Ahvaz terrorist attack

Iran’s Intelligence Ministry arrests the ringleader of a separatist militant group that carried out the 2018 deadly terrorist attack in the Iranian city of Ahvaz.

Following his arrest, the terrorist, who had planned several abortive terrorist operations in Iranian cities, confessed to cooperation with the Saudi intelligence service.

The regime in Riyadh has also been a major supporter of the so-called Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), a notorious terrorist outfit that has the blood of thousands of Iranians on its hands.

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