Iran on Friday rejected what it called "baseless" accusations made at an Arab summit, saying Saudi had joined the United States and Israel in a "hopeless" effort to mobilize regional opinion against Tehran, state media reported on Friday.
Saudi Arabia's king told an emergency Arab summit that decisive action was needed to stop Iranian "escalations" in the region following attacks on Gulf oil assets, as American officials said a U.S. military deployment had deterred Tehran.
"Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi ... rejected the baseless accusations by the heads of certain Arab countries ... and said 'We see the Saudi effort to mobilize [regional] opinion as part of the hopeless process followed by America and the Zionist regime against Iran,'" the state news agency IRNA said.
On Thursday, Saudi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Assaf urged Muslim nations to confront recent attacks in the region that the U.S. and its allies have blamed on Iran with "all means of force and firmness."
Al-Assaf made the comments at a meeting of foreign ministers of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation ahead of a series of summits in the kingdom that began on Thursday.
Al-Assaf said the alleged sabotage of boats off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and a drone attack on a Saudi oil pipeline by Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels requires the region to "make more efforts to counter the terrorist acts of extremist and terrorist groups."
"We should confront it with all means of force and firmness," al-Assaf said.
