Iranian
Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan delivers a speech during the 4th
Moscow Conference on International Security (MCIS) in Moscow April 16,
2015. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin
DUBAI
(Reuters) - Iran will hit back at most of Saudi Arabia with the
exception of Islam's holiest places if the kingdom does anything
"ignorant", Tehran's defense minister was quoted as saying on Sunday
after a Saudi prince threatened to move the "battle" to Iran.
"If
the Saudis do anything ignorant, we will leave no area untouched except
Mecca and Medina," Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan was quoted
by the semi-official Tasnim news agency as saying.
"They
think they can do something because they have an air force," he added
in an apparent reference to Yemen, where Saudi warplanes regularly
attack Iran-aligned Houthi forces in control of the capital Sanaa.
Dehghan,
speaking to Arabic-language Al-Manar TV, was commenting on remarks by
Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who said on Tuesday any
contest for influence between the Sunni Muslim kingdom and the
revolutionary Shi'ite theocracy ought to take place "inside Iran, not in
Saudi Arabia".
Saudi
Arabia and Iran compete for influence in the Middle East and support
rival groups in Syria's civil war. Iran denies Saudi accusations that it
sends financial and sometimes armed support to groups hostile to Riyadh
around the Arab world.
In
unusually blunt comments in a nationally-televised interview on
Tuesday, Prince Mohammed ruled out any dialogue with Iran and pledged to
protect his conservative kingdom from what he called Tehran's efforts
to dominate the Muslim world.
"We
know that we are a main goal for the Iranian regime," he said. "We will
not wait until the battle becomes in Saudi Arabia but we will work to
have the battle in Iran rather than in Saudi Arabia."
(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom, Editing by William Maclean and Angus MacSwan)
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