Tehran - Iran warned Saudi Arabia on Friday that it risks
losing credibility on account of its fiery rhetoric, after Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman called the Islamic Republic's supreme
leader "the new Hitler of the Middle East."
Salman, the 32-year-old heir to the Saudi throne, made the comments
about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an interview with the New York Times,
published Thursday.
"His comments are so inappropriate, crude and also partly stupid that
he is increasingly losing respectability and credibility in the
world," Bahram Ghassemi, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign
Ministry, said in response late Friday.
Ghassemi also said that Saudi Arabia's involvement in domestic
Lebanese politics risked the reputation of Riyadh, even among its
allies.
"We would therefore advise the crown prince to be careful that, with
this kind of politics, he does not experience the same fate as other
fallen dictators in the region," the spokesman said in a statement.
Riyadh has been pursuing a newly aggressive foreign policy aimed at
combatting Iranian influence and political Islamism since Crown
Prince Mohammed's rise to power.
The Sunni-ruled kingdom also faced accusations in recent weeks of
having pressured Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri into resigning.