Trump shouldn’t scrap Iran deal: Saudi Prince

Cairo : US President-elect Donald Trump should not scrap a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers but should take the nation to task for its “destabilising activities” in the Middle East, said a former senior Saudi official.

“I don’t think he should scrap it. It’s been worked on for many years and the general consensus in the world, not just the United States, is that it has achieved an objective, which is a 15-year hiatus in the programme that Iran embarked on to develop nuclear weapons,” Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and ex-ambassador to Washington and London said on Thursday.

“To scrap that willy-nilly as it were will have ramifications, and I don’t know if something else can be put in its place to guarantee that Iran will not go that route if the agreement is scrapped,” he said in Washington.

Prince Turki said he would like to see if the deal could become a “stepping stone” to a more permanent programme “to prevent proliferation through the establishment of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.”

Prince Turki does not presently hold any official position in the Saudi leadership, and he emphasised that he was speaking in a personal capacity. 

Prince Turki also said Trump should admonish Iran for its “very adventurous and very destabilising activities” in the Middle East.

“I would like to see Trump marshal American public opinion and American government activity to challenge that view of Iran that it can license itself to interference,” he said.