Saudi Arabia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event that an Iranian atomic bomb cannot be prevented. “That is definitely an option,” said the State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Adel al-Jubair.
If Iran became a nuclear power, other countries would follow suit. „And Saudi Arabia has made it clear that it will do everything possible to protect its people and to protect its territory.“
Saudi Arabia and Iran are vying for supremacy in the Middle East, a region with numerous conflicts such as the bloody wars in Syria and Yemen. Iran has been working on the use of nuclear power for decades.
In 2015, the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany signed an agreement with the government in Tehran to prevent a nuclear bomb from being built. In return, economic sanctions were lifted.
Riyadh is planning nuclear power plants
Under President Donald Trump, however, the US pulled out of the agreement and brought it to the brink of failure. The Trump administration wants a broader deal that includes the Iranian missile program and that will stop Iran’s interference in regional conflicts. Saudi Arabia supports that.
„We believe that Iran has only responded to pressure so far,“ said Jubair. On the question of whether he feared a change of course under Joe Biden as US President, he did not want to comment: „We will see.“ Trump is considered a loyal ally of Saudi Arabia.
A nuclear program of the oil-rich desert state is not known. So far the kingdom has no nuclear power plants either. However, the authoritarian-led country has declared that it intends to build 16 nuclear reactors over the next 20 to 25 years. The cost of this could be estimated at up to 80 billion US dollars.
Saudi Arabia wants to cover its growing energy needs with the civil use of nuclear power and also use smaller reactors for the desalination of seawater. At the same time, the country wants to export more oil that would otherwise end up on the domestic market at subsidized prices.
Oxfam criticizes arms exports to Saudi Arabia
A few days before the virtual G-20 summit chaired by Saudi Arabia, the aid organization Oxfam criticized the sometimes huge arms exports to the authoritarian desert state. Since Saudi Arabia entered the civil war in Yemen in 2015, the G-20 countries have exported arms worth more than 17 billion US dollars to Saudi Arabia.
According to Oxfam calculations, that is three times what the G-20 is making available for humanitarian aid in Yemen, Oxfam said today.
