24 November 2017•Update: 24 November 2017
By Murat Karadag
ANKARA
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is slated to assume control of the oil-rich kingdom once his father passes away or steps down, has described Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as the “Hitler” of the Middle East region.
"Iran's supreme leader is the new Hitler of the Middle East," the crown prince declared in a Thursday interview with the New York Times.
“We learned from Europe that appeasement doesn’t work,” he said in reference to events that took place in the run-up to the Second World War.
“We don’t want the new Hitler in Iran to repeat what happened in Europe in the Middle East,” he added.
Remarking on the recent spate of arrests of high-profile figures in Saudi Arabia, which were ostensibly carried out as part of an “anti-graft campaign”, bin Salman said his country had suffered from the effects of corruption since the 1980s.
"Our experts estimate that roughly 10 percent of all government spending was siphoned off each year through corrupt practices," he said.
"Over the years, the government launched more than one ‘war on corruption’ and they all failed,” he added. “Why? Because they all started from the bottom up."
He went on to note that some 200 high-level individuals in Saudi Arabia had been detained by an “anti-corruption” commission established by his father.
According to the crown prince, a whopping $100 billion is expected to be recovered from Saudi royals accused of corruption.
When asked about his stated desire to introduce a more “moderate” approach to Islam in the kingdom, he said: "Don't write that we are 'reinterpreting' Islam; we are restoring Islam to its origins.”
*Ali Murat Alhas contributed to this report from Ankara
