Arab and Islamic foreign ministers issued a joint statement from Riyadh condemning Iran's recent attacks, as the Saudi Foreign Minister warned that military options remain on the table following strikes on two Saudi refineries.
Arab and Islamic foreign ministers gathered in Riyadh, issuing a joint statement condemning the Islamic Republic's recent strikes as deliberate aggression. According to the Saudi-linked opposition network Iran International, the summit's closing statement demanded an immediate halt to the attacks, which targeted residential areas and civilian infrastructure, and affirmed the right of regional countries to self-defense. The popular independent channel Vahid Online corroborated that the signatories firmly rejected any justification for Tehran's actions.
During the summit, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan delivered a severe warning to Tehran, indicating a sharp escalation in rhetoric. Iran International reports that bin Farhan declared the little trust previously existing between Riyadh and the Islamic Republic is completely gone. He revealed that two refineries in Riyadh were targeted, noting that attacking the capital during a diplomatic summit demonstrates Tehran's hostile approach to diplomacy and its reliance on pressure rather than dialogue. These refinery strikes follow a massive regional escalation earlier this week, during which Iran launched hundreds of retaliatory strikes across the Middle East following widespread US and Israeli bombardments of Iranian targets.
Bin Farhan explicitly warned that Saudi Arabia is preparing various responses and will not yield to pressure. According to Iranian domestic news aggregator اخبارفوری خبرفوری جنگ امریکا حمله, the Foreign Minister stressed that if Iran believes Gulf states cannot respond, it has made a miscalculation, adding that both political and non-political options are on the table. The aggregator channel اخبارفوری خبرفوری جنگ امریکا فوری added that bin Farhan warned Iran's attacks threaten international peace and freedom of navigation, which will only increase Tehran's isolation and violate the principles of Islamic solidarity and good neighborliness.
Iranian domestic news channels highlighted the unprecedented tone of the Saudi response. Another aggregator, خبرفوری ࡆ اخبارفوری مذاکره ࡆ جنگ فوری, reported that bin Farhan took a war stance against Iran. The channel emphasized his warning that Saudi patience is not limitless and that Riyadh reserves the right to military action against Iran. The report noted claims that Saudi Arabia is pushing for a harsher stance against Iran behind the scenes while maintaining calls for de-escalation in the public information space.
The source messages uniformly point to a stark deterioration in Saudi-Iranian relations, characterized by explicit threats of military action. No factual discrepancies exist across the provided channels, though the domestic Iranian channels notably summarized the Saudi posture plainly as a 'war stance', reflecting how seriously the domestic audience is viewing Riyadh's warnings.