Riyadh the capital of terrorism on the planet: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Seyed Mostafa Khoshcheshm, a political analyst from Tehran, on Saudi Arabia’s execution of 47 people including prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

Following is rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Give us your analysis on how events have transpired since the Saturday announcement by the Saudi Interior Ministry of the mass executions.

Khoshcheshm: Riyadh has become the capital of terrorism on the planet, and this is no more a secret fact and it’s no more secret to anyone.

It was just a couple of days ago that Bild magazine, one of the most notable and renowned publications in the print media in Germany, they said that the main headline was, 'Saudi Arabia has no more than terrorism, oil and dates to export and to give to us'. And it was just last year that Joe Biden, the vice president of the United States, confessed that it is the Saudi ally, Saudi Arabia mainly, as well as Qatar and Turkey that are running terrorism in the region.

And we can all see that the region is in turmoil. And just a few months ago, General Flynn, the former director of intelligence department at the Pentagon, confessed that the United States was informed of the Saudi moves in support of the spread of terrorism in the region.

So the Saudis are, as well as the Qataris and the Turkish, running an agenda of Israel and the United States in the region that is bringing more chaos to the region and rising sectarian strife among Muslims in the Middle East. Unfortunately, this has wreaked havoc on their own countries as well. They do not pay attention that their domestic dissent has grown, international opposition to these countries, especially Saudi Arabia, has grown in the last few years.

After the diplomatic turmoil started in the relations between Riyadh and Tehran, the Saudi riyal lost half of its value, and we can all see the plunge in the stock exchange market in Riyadh. So they have been sustaining much loss and damage since Saturday, especially with this kind of economy that they have right now. They announced that they have a very large budget deficit and they’re selling state bonds to foreign banks, and this has actually increased the risk ratio at the international market. So bankers outside the country are now giving it a second thought to see if it’s okay to lend more money to Saudi Arabia or not.

Saudi Arabia has cut its developmental projects except for the health and education sector, and they are facing very big problems.

Some Italian bankers, who were in Tehran just a few months ago, they just revealed that if the same kind of expenditures that they have, if the Yemen war and financial support for terrorists in Syria and Iraq continue, Saudi Arabia will go bankrupt in about one and a half years from now.

So they cannot tolerate such burden of chaos anymore. If they increase tensions, as we have seen in the last few days, they will have to pay a lot for any increase in tension.

On the opposite side, Tehran has been trying to appease and to soothe this crisis in the last few days. Tehran has been doing its best in order to control public sentiment so that no such incidents like the storming of the embassy happens again, and Iran has been doing its best. It gave a letter to the UN Security Council regretting whatever has happened and promising to secure diplomatic missions and it’s been doing whatever it can. The government has been very rigid in this regard and it’s now trying to soothe this crisis, but the Saudis seem to be willing to still increase and deepen this crisis and they will lose much. They have a lot at stake.

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