Saudi Crown Prince says, "We will develop nuclear bomb if Iran does so"

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince warned in a US television interview on Thursday that if Tehran got a nuclear weapon, his country would 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.”

The full interview will be broadcast on Sunday’s “60 Minutes” show.

But, he added, Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is like Adolf Hitler “because he wants to expand. He wants to create his own project in the Middle East very much like Hitler who wanted to expand 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.”

Relations between the two Middle Eastern powers are at a low ebb. Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear programme as part of a landmark deal reached with world powers in 2015. 

Earlier this week Riyadh announced the creation of a new atomic energy programme as part of Vision 2030, the kingdom’s ambitious effort to wean itself off dependence on oil following a plunge in global oil prices in 2015.