TEHRAN – Kuwaiti deputy Foreign Minister Khaled al-Jarallah said his country is looking for paths through which the dialogue between the (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council and the Islamic Republic continues.

Al-Jarallah said Kuwait is seeking closer relations with Russia and dialogue with Iran, ISNA reported on Monday.

He noted that Kuwait and the GCC member states are not seeking to establish a political and military coalition with Washington, and that they are striving to strengthen their ties with Moscow as well.

Kuwait has taken the initiative to repair relations between Iran and other Persian Gulf countries, notably Saudi Arabia, whose relations with Iran have nosedived in recent years.

Tension between Riyadh and Tehran peaked late in 2015 over a hajj tragedy in Mina during which more than 464 Iranian nationals among thousands of others were killed in a stampede.

Also, Riyadh summoned its diplomats from Tehran in January 2016, after angry protesters attacked its diplomatic posts in Tehran and Mashhad in response to the execution of a prominent pro-democracy cleric by Saudi authorities.

While improvement of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia is expected to make inroads into the crises in the Middle East, the efforts to make peace between the two have failed so far.

In a recent interview, Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman said there was no space for dialogue with Tehran due to what he claimed Iran’s ambitions “to control the Islamic world.”

Further escalating tensions with Iran, the prince said the Saudis would not sit and wait for war but would “work so that it becomes a battle for them in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia.”

The inflammatory remarks did not go unnoticed by Iranian officials. In an interview aired on Sunday, Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan warned Saudi Arabia against “doing something stupid”.

Speaking to Al-Manar TV, Dehqan said if the Saudis do anything stupid, the Iranian army will hit back and destroy all of the kingdom – apart from Mecca and Medina.

Referring to a possible Saudi attack or invasion of Iran, the defense minister said he doesn't “understand how they would attempt to do something like that ... they must imagine they have a powerful air force to do so.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has also responded to the Saudi prince’s remarks, saying the kingdom follows “confrontational and destructive policies” in the region and towards Tehran.

MH/PA