Iran accuses Saudi Arabia of being ‘US milking cow’

Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei slammed regional rival Saudi Arabia on Sunday, describing the kingdom as the US ‘milking cow’.

Saudi Arabia is being pumped “like a milking cow” by “infidel” Americans, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday, in a fierce attack against its regional rival.

“These people (the Saudis) appear to believe in the Quran… but in practice they act against its teachings,” Khamenei said at a meeting on Saturday to mark the start of the holy month of Ramadan.

“They are close with the infidels and offer the enemy the money they should be using to improve the lives of their own people.

“But in reality there is no closeness and, as the Americans have said, they are just there to pump them for money like a milking cow, and later slaughter them,” he added.

The comments seem to reference the recent visit by US President Donald Trump to Riyadh, which saw the two allies ink a $110 billion weapons deal as well as investment worth billions more.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are on opposing sides in a number of regional conflicts, including in Syria and Yemen.

Trump sought to boost an anti-Iran alliance of Arab powers during his trip – but the visit was dismissed as a “show with no practical or political value” by Iran’s newly re-elected President Hassan Rouhani.

During Trump’s first visit to Israel, the US president said he observed that Muslim states and Israel share a “common cause” in confronting Iran.

Trump arrived in Tel Aviv from Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh, where he had met with leaders and representatives of over 50 Muslim countries a day earlier.

A statement following the president’s first meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said there was a growing realisation that Muslim leaders share a “common cause with you [Israelis]” in their determination to defeat extremism and “the threat posed by Iran”.

Trump’s confrontational stance towards Iran has been greeted Tehran’s regional rivals both in the Gulf and Israel, following a period of perceived appeasement during Barack Obama’s presidency.

The president had repeatedly called the 2015 signing of the Iran nuclear accord, which saw the lifting of sanctions on Tehran, as the “worst deal ever”.