{Open confrontation between two rivals is a real possibility, a former advisor to Saudi royal family tells Al Jazeera.}<\/p>\n
The world should be worried about an open conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a former advisor to the Saudi Arabian royal family has told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
“The hate, the anger, the killing, they have the ingredients for a major confrontation,” Jamal Khashoggi said in an interview with Al Jazeera’s flagship current affairs show UpFront.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia severed relations with Iran after an attack on its embassy in Tehran last week following the kingdom’s execution of Shia religious leader Nimr al-Nimr, who was put to death along with 46 mostly Sunni Muslims convicted on terrorism charges.<\/p>\n
Saudi, a predominantly Sunni kingdom, and Shia Iran have accused each other of backing proxies in the war in Yemen and Syria.<\/p>\n
Khashoggi, who served as media advisor to Prince Turki Al-Faisal, put the blame for escalating tensions squarely on Iran.<\/p>\n
“It all happened because of a simple reason: Iranian expansionism,” the veteran journalist based in the oil-rich kingdom said.<\/p>\n
“It was the straw that broke the back of a very strained, very bad relationship, and experiences we have had with the Iranians. It’s all about expansionism, not anything else,” he added.<\/p>\n
‘No war’<\/p>\n
Dismissing war as an option, a former Iranian diplomat, however, has told Al Jazeera that the issue between the two sides can be resolved through diplomacy.<\/p>\n
“I don’t believe we should be worried. I don’t believe there will be a war,” Seyed Hossein Mousavian, the former head of the Foreig<\/p>\n
Last week Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told a British magazine that the kingdom will not go to war with Iran.<\/p>\n
Salman, who is also the defence minister, told the Economist that Iran-Saudi war would mean catastrophe for the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Mousavian said the rise of what he called terrorism was a major threat to peace, security and stability in the region.<\/p>\n
He accused Saudi Arabia of “supporting terrorists”, adding that Syrian crisis was the result of Saudi backing of opposition groups with money and weapons.<\/p>\n
Tehran is a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has backed Damascus through the five years of civil war that has displaced nearly half of the population and killed more than 250,000 people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Open confrontation between two rivals is a real possibility, a former advisor to Saudi royal family tells Al Jazeera.} The world should be worried about an open conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a former advisor to the Saudi Arabian royal family has told Al Jazeera. “The hate, the anger, the killing, they have the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000071507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-22533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000071507,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22533.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22533.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22533.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22533.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22533.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22533.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000071507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22533"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=22533"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=22533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}