Khamenei is ‘new Hitler’: Saudi Crown Prince

Washington : Likening Iran’s leader to Adolf Hitler, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince warned in a US television interview that if Tehran gets a nuclear weapon, his country will follow suit.

“Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible,” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in an excerpt of the interview that aired Thursday on “CBS This Morning.” Crown Prince Mohammed said he has referred to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “the new Hitler” because Khamenei has expansionist desires

“He wants to create his own project in the Middle East, very much like Hitler,” Crown Prince Mohammed said in reference to Hitler’s desire to conquer his European neighbours at the time.

“Many countries around the world and in Europe did not realize how dangerous Hitler was until what happened, happened. I don’t want to see the same events happening in the Middle East.” The interview is scheduled to run on CBS’s “60 Minutes” show on Sunday, two days before the crown prince’s scheduled White House meeting with US President Donald Trump.

His comments come amid concerns over nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and just days after the kingdom put an atomic energy program on a fast track.

Although intended to reduce Saudi Arabia’s dependence on oil, analysts warn the capacity to produce atomic energy could open a pathway to nuclear development for military purposes. 

A 2015 nuclear agreement has placed curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme, but Trump has expressed a desire to scrap it, making its future uncertain.