Saudi crown prince: we will not hesitate to respond decisively to any threat

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has declared that the kingdom will not hesitate to respond decisively to any threat or attack aimed at harming it, during the annual royal speech at the opening of the Shura Council.

He also reiterated support for Yemen’s internationally recognised government to extend its authority across the whole country and to confront Houthi attacks, accusing the group of having chosen “chaos and destruction”, as Al Jazeera reports.

The crown prince announced that the “Mecca Defence Pact” between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan aims to protect the region from an escalation of the conflict, while the kingdom has begun creating a “multinational naval defence coalition” to protect international waterways, rejecting their exploitation as a tool of political or economic pressure.

He also condemned the continuing Israeli attacks in the Palestinian territories and the “repeated violations” of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem.