Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Adel Al-Jubeir, and the US special envoy on Iranian affairs, Brian Hook, have called for an extension of the arms embargo to Iran. Washington is pressing the United Nations Security Council to renew it when it expires next October.
In a joint press conference in Riyadh with Hook, who is currently visiting the Kingdom, Al-Jubeir said that his country urges the international community to extend the ban, and also called for preventing Iran from exporting weapons and supporting what he described as terrorism, noting that Iran is dealing with gangs to promote drugs and support terrorism.
He added that the nuclear agreement concluded between Iran and the Group of Six in 2015 is weak, and that the world must stand firm against what he described as Iran's terrorist policies.
Al-Jubeir spoke about Saudi Arabia confiscating yesterday a shipment of weapons that Iran tried to transfer to the Houthi group in Yemen.
During the press conference, it presented the remnants of missiles and drones, which Riyadh says provided Tehran with the Houthis to bomb the kingdom.
Yemen
In the Yemeni affairs, the Saudi minister said that Riyadh is working to bring the situation closer between the Yemeni legitimate government and the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council, indicating that this is being done in accordance with the Riyadh agreement signed between the two sides.
For his part, the American envoy said that the 13-year-old arms embargo did not stop the transfer of weapons to Iran, but it was an effective legal and diplomatic weapon, which limits Iran's ability to transfer weapons freely to its allies.
He added that lifting the embargo would make Iran modernize its existing weapons and obtain new and sensitive weapons that it might export to its arms in the region, and he considered that this would increase its missile and naval military capabilities, which would constitute a greater threat to maritime transport and international navigation, he said.
The US envoy pointed out that his country and other countries are contributing to supporting its Saudi counterpart with forces and military support to counter any potential threat from Iran.
It is reported that Iran announced that any extension of the arms embargo, which Russia and China mainly oppose, would be a violation of international law, and announced that it is continuing to develop its military arsenal, while the US Secretary of State said that if his country fails to persuade the Security Council to extend the embargo, it will do so separately. .