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You're up to date with the latest headlines on BBC News. | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
And now in a change to our scheduled programming, | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
Welcome to a special edition of HARDtalk from Riyadh Saudi Arabia | :00:00. | :00:19. | |
with me Stephen Sackur. These are deeply troubling times in this | :00:20. | :00:24. | |
oil-rich kingdom. Saudi Arabia is locked in a confrontation with Iran | :00:25. | :00:27. | |
that is playing out in Syria and Yemen. The oil price has crashed and | :00:28. | :00:32. | |
his country's human rights record is widely condemned -- this. My guest | :00:33. | :00:38. | |
today is the spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry, General Mansour | :00:39. | :00:44. | |
Al-Turki. Is the house of Saud in need of major repair? General | :00:45. | :01:04. | |
Mansour Al-Turki, welcome to HARDtalk. You are welcome and thank | :01:05. | :01:11. | |
you for having me. Can you remember a time of greater uncertainty than | :01:12. | :01:16. | |
there is right now? When you have got a plummeting oil price which is | :01:17. | :01:20. | |
fundamentally affecting the revenues that are coming into your | :01:21. | :01:25. | |
government, to your country, you have also got a hugely turbulent | :01:26. | :01:29. | |
region and your country is involved in some of the conflict in this | :01:30. | :01:34. | |
region. And you have got strained alliances, most particularly with | :01:35. | :01:37. | |
your greatest supporter and friend, the United States of America. If you | :01:38. | :01:41. | |
put all of those together, it is something of a perfect storm that | :01:42. | :01:48. | |
facing your country today. Well, actually I think we are used to | :01:49. | :01:53. | |
dealing with hard situations. The most important thing he is how we | :01:54. | :02:00. | |
are unified and how we are willing to defend our country and to defend | :02:01. | :02:07. | |
our values and beliefs. And when it comes to the economy, I think this | :02:08. | :02:12. | |
is something the government is dealing with and I do not actually | :02:13. | :02:17. | |
have much in particular to talk about regarding the economy, I am a | :02:18. | :02:22. | |
security person. I am very much concerned actually with the | :02:23. | :02:28. | |
situation that we are dealing with, not just in Saudi Arabia, but the | :02:29. | :02:35. | |
region in general, specifically inflaming sectarian hatred and the | :02:36. | :02:40. | |
splitting amount era people all around the region -- splitting of | :02:41. | :02:48. | |
Arab people. I wanted to talk to you about that today, particularly the | :02:49. | :02:53. | |
sectarian divide. Saudi Arabia is absolutely a part of this issue in | :02:54. | :02:59. | |
the region you, obviously are a Sunni government, a Wahhabi Sunni | :03:00. | :03:06. | |
government and people and you are a key regional player facing and | :03:07. | :03:10. | |
confronting what you insist is a fundamental threat from Shia Iran. | :03:11. | :03:16. | |
Why have you chosen the path of confrontation? We have been | :03:17. | :03:22. | |
specifically in Saudi Arabia, you have mentioned that the majority | :03:23. | :03:30. | |
here are Sunni, but we also have other citizens who follow the Shia | :03:31. | :03:40. | |
Islam. 10-15% of your population is Shia. That's true. And yet you look | :03:41. | :03:47. | |
at the treatment of your Shia population and every independent | :03:48. | :03:51. | |
international human rights group says that the Shia people of this | :03:52. | :03:56. | |
country are oppressed and repressed by your government. That has no | :03:57. | :04:04. | |
basis. Such accusations have no basis. In the kingdom all people are | :04:05. | :04:09. | |
treated equal, all people enjoy the same rights, but we have to remember | :04:10. | :04:13. | |
that Saudi Arabia is a country based on Islam and it has 2 million | :04:14. | :04:22. | |
mosques and therefore, actually, we have two -- two really make sure | :04:23. | :04:35. | |
that everyone actually follows the right Islamic laws. And in reality, | :04:36. | :04:45. | |
the real problem we're facing is coming from outside, not the inside | :04:46. | :04:50. | |
of Saudi Arabia. If you don't face the problem inside, why did you | :04:51. | :04:56. | |
choose to execute 47 people at the beginning of this year, including | :04:57. | :04:59. | |
one of the Shia community's most respected clerics? That was the | :05:00. | :05:08. | |
court sentence. It had to be carried out. The fundamental question is, is | :05:09. | :05:14. | |
it, in your view, a crime punishable by death to call for an end to the | :05:15. | :05:20. | |
rule of the Saud family? That's not the story. What you are saying | :05:21. | :05:28. | |
actually is not what we deal with on the real situation, on the real | :05:29. | :05:34. | |
ground. What is happening, actually, he was leading a terrorist cell and | :05:35. | :05:38. | |
he was no different from the others, actually who were related to | :05:39. | :05:49. | |
ISIL or Al-Qaeda. Do you regret the reputational damage that was done by | :05:50. | :05:55. | |
those executions and particularly his? The United States, for example, | :05:56. | :06:01. | |
released a statement saying it was" Gravely concerned about the | :06:02. | :06:05. | |
execution which risked exacerbating sectarian tensions at a time when | :06:06. | :06:10. | |
they are urgently in need of reduction". In this country we have | :06:11. | :06:17. | |
faced terrorism a lot, and we have suffered from terrorism. And he was | :06:18. | :06:24. | |
responsible for a series of terrorist related crimes that | :06:25. | :06:27. | |
resulted in the death and injury of hundreds of people. Were you | :06:28. | :06:31. | |
surprised by the reaction from the international community? And of | :06:32. | :06:36. | |
course, also from Iran? Because afterwards we saw one of your | :06:37. | :06:40. | |
diplomatic buildings attacked inside Iran and it led to a new low and | :06:41. | :06:44. | |
heightened tension in the relationship between you and | :06:45. | :06:49. | |
Tehran? Iran was actually trying to use the incident, or to use the | :06:50. | :06:57. | |
execution for inflaming more sectarian hatred. But your | :06:58. | :06:59. | |
government must've known that would happen? Well, our government is not | :07:00. | :07:07. | |
going into this, especially when it comes to court sentences of whether | :07:08. | :07:13. | |
it will irritate Iran or not. The law is the law. The law is going to | :07:14. | :07:17. | |
be executed. We will have to comply with the law. Here's what a | :07:18. | :07:21. | |
diplomatic source who doesn't want to be named said to me. He said it | :07:22. | :07:25. | |
was clear what the Saudi 's were doing. They are under enormous | :07:26. | :07:29. | |
pressure right now, economic pressure in particular and they're | :07:30. | :07:33. | |
concerned about the long-term impact of falling oil prices. It could | :07:34. | :07:37. | |
cause real problems at home so they have chosen to ratchet up the | :07:38. | :07:45. | |
nationalist furore with this execution and with the war in Yemen | :07:46. | :07:59. | |
Mac against the Houthis. This is from those who link us to terrorism | :08:00. | :08:02. | |
and insist that we are part of the terrorist problem in the world and | :08:03. | :08:07. | |
sometimes, people accuse us even of being behind ISIL, for example. | :08:08. | :08:13. | |
Well, we will talk about that in a minute. There is a problem of how | :08:14. | :08:17. | |
others actually are viewing Saudi Arabia. There is a perception, you | :08:18. | :08:22. | |
have a major perception problem. It is a major problem but it is not our | :08:23. | :08:26. | |
problem stop quite the thing is, you have to decide how you handle it. | :08:27. | :08:30. | |
Does it make sense for King Salman and his government when you know you | :08:31. | :08:34. | |
have a perception problem to conduct a massive bombing operation in Yemen | :08:35. | :08:38. | |
which is killing hundreds and hundreds of civilians? Is that | :08:39. | :08:48. | |
sensible? Well, actually, let's be clear about this. This has inflamed | :08:49. | :09:01. | |
hatred and it is all over. Your government is behind it. There are | :09:02. | :09:07. | |
the countries who are sponsoring terrorism. They are using terrorism | :09:08. | :09:17. | |
to inflame the sectarian hatred. They are crying that it is best to | :09:18. | :09:21. | |
actually redraw the map of the Middle East based on the sectarian | :09:22. | :09:26. | |
basis. Our country is unified from different people all over the | :09:27. | :09:31. | |
country of Saudi Arabia. From the North, South, East and West. We've | :09:32. | :09:38. | |
are unified in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and we will not allow anybody | :09:39. | :09:44. | |
to endanger that. In the end, this is about the mindset, the culture | :09:45. | :09:49. | |
and indeed, the religious orthodoxy of this country. This country is | :09:50. | :09:54. | |
ruled by a Wahhabi Islamic principle and the Wahhabi principle is that | :09:55. | :10:00. | |
the Shia are not true Muslims. Looks, there is no such Wahhabi | :10:01. | :10:05. | |
principle. Have you looked at the school textbooks here? I came out of | :10:06. | :10:13. | |
this school system come of this education system in this country. | :10:14. | :10:18. | |
They basically indicate that Saudis who are not Sunni are not full, true | :10:19. | :10:25. | |
Saudis. Let me tell you that when we talk about why this am, as you call | :10:26. | :10:35. | |
it -- Wahhabism, it is a peaceful movement that did not promote any | :10:36. | :10:38. | |
type of terrorism. It has been there for more than two centuries and it | :10:39. | :10:42. | |
never produced any kind of terrorism. It only helped with | :10:43. | :10:47. | |
producing this country, which actually provided these people with | :10:48. | :10:55. | |
prosperity and a better future. Let's move onto another case. Raif | :10:56. | :10:59. | |
Badawi. People around the world will remove her that he was the blogger | :11:00. | :11:03. | |
who was very active in talking about politics in this country, he had | :11:04. | :11:06. | |
strong views and put them on the Internet. He was arrested. He was | :11:07. | :11:12. | |
convicted. He was sentenced to 1000 lashings, which by any norm, would | :11:13. | :11:17. | |
be a sentence pretty close to death. Now, is that the kind of | :11:18. | :11:20. | |
message you want to send to the world? Look, the message we want to | :11:21. | :11:26. | |
send to the world is that there are laws in Saudi Arabia. And all the | :11:27. | :11:31. | |
laws in Saudi Arabia are based on the religion of Islam. And people in | :11:32. | :11:35. | |
Saudi Arabia have to comply with the laws before anybody else. Foreigners | :11:36. | :11:42. | |
come in from outside and don't understand that the laws, I could | :11:43. | :11:48. | |
excuse that. But I cannot excuse any Saudi who has been living here, who | :11:49. | :11:55. | |
was born here, because he knows the laws. He knows that these laws are | :11:56. | :12:00. | |
based on the religion. He knows that this is the choice of the majority | :12:01. | :12:05. | |
of the people in Saudi Arabia. So being flogged with 1000 lashes seems | :12:06. | :12:10. | |
to you the right and proper response to a man who has political opinions | :12:11. | :12:13. | |
which don't please the government? I cannot comment on court decisions. | :12:14. | :12:21. | |
Once the court has sentenced somebody for flogging, then that is | :12:22. | :12:27. | |
the sentence. It is not me who did that sentence. But anyway, there are | :12:28. | :12:36. | |
also conditions. When you want to carry out lashings, for example, | :12:37. | :12:40. | |
there are conditions. The UN Commissioner for Human Rights says | :12:41. | :12:45. | |
that blogging is, in my view, a form of cruel and unusual punishment. | :12:46. | :12:49. | |
Such punishment is prohibited under international human rights law. | :12:50. | :12:56. | |
Well, OK. Flogging is part of punishment in Islam. You keep coming | :12:57. | :13:02. | |
back to telling me that this is mandated by Islam. This is the | :13:03. | :13:08. | |
problem. When you look at Saudi Arabia, when you want to evaluate | :13:09. | :13:12. | |
Saudi Arabia and what is going on here, you have to understand Islam. | :13:13. | :13:18. | |
I am saying this because you are telling me that the international | :13:19. | :13:22. | |
community says this or that. Unfortunately, anything that the | :13:23. | :13:29. | |
international community or any position the international community | :13:30. | :13:33. | |
takes which contradicts Islam is not considered in Saudi Arabia. Islam | :13:34. | :13:37. | |
comes first. We come back to conversation we had earlier. A | :13:38. | :13:43. | |
particular brand of Islam, this very, very hard-line Wahhabi Islam, | :13:44. | :13:49. | |
which is in the end, driving the sort of punishment and sentences | :13:50. | :13:52. | |
which we are talking about. Excuse me. You still insist on Wahhabi. I | :13:53. | :13:59. | |
do, let me just quote you the words of one particular man who is the | :14:00. | :14:03. | |
nephew of one of the bombers who last year killed more than 20 people | :14:04. | :14:07. | |
in a bomb attack here in Saudi Arabia. He was and Islamic State | :14:08. | :14:17. | |
militant and his uncle, afterwards said, you know what? My nephew went | :14:18. | :14:22. | |
bad because hard-line preachers here in Saudi Arabia had planted the | :14:23. | :14:27. | |
seeds of hate and violence in my nephew's headed. Euston to find an | :14:28. | :14:37. | |
excuse. Saudi Arabia is made of more than 40 million Muslims -- he is | :14:38. | :14:41. | |
trying. And actually have to add to those about 10 million from outside | :14:42. | :14:45. | |
Saudi Arabia. Do you accept that there are people inside this | :14:46. | :14:50. | |
country, senior clerics, who are preaching hatred and who are | :14:51. | :14:53. | |
fostering an atmosphere in which some young Saudis are eager to join | :14:54. | :14:59. | |
militant groups, including so-called Islamic State? | :15:00. | :15:03. | |
This is criminalised in Saudi Arabia. When someone does this they | :15:04. | :15:11. | |
will be subject to the law. Thanks to Wikileaks, Hillary Clinton in | :15:12. | :15:16. | |
2010-2011, was saying Saudi Arabia was funding, very significantly | :15:17. | :15:26. | |
funding Islamist militant networks around the world. That is still true | :15:27. | :15:32. | |
today, isn't it? There is nobody, no country on earth, is doing actually | :15:33. | :15:38. | |
as much as we do to control our finance, to control lets say the | :15:39. | :15:43. | |
financial system in Saudi Arabia. We are doing more than we are supposed | :15:44. | :15:50. | |
to do -- let's. People in Saudi Arabia are complaining that the | :15:51. | :15:53. | |
government in Saudi Arabia is preventing them from fundraising, | :15:54. | :15:59. | |
from collecting any charity, from doing any help with the country | :16:00. | :16:03. | |
itself, actually. The government has taken responsibility of all of that. | :16:04. | :16:09. | |
How seriously do you take the so-called Islamic State threat | :16:10. | :16:17. | |
inside Saudi today? It is a threat. Just last year actually they | :16:18. | :16:22. | |
committed almost 15 different terrorist crimes in the kingdom, | :16:23. | :16:27. | |
which resulted in more than 65 deaths. Actually, we see ISIS as a | :16:28. | :16:38. | |
front, which was made by those who sponsor terrorism to target Saudi | :16:39. | :16:43. | |
Arabia. But thanks god they are failing, they are failing because we | :16:44. | :16:46. | |
are very much fighting and we are doing our job and the security | :16:47. | :16:53. | |
forces from protecting the country from conspiracy. Do you then except | :16:54. | :17:00. | |
it was a mistake to fund Sunni Islamist terror networks overseas? | :17:01. | :17:05. | |
There is blowback and you fear that blowback at home. We did not find | :17:06. | :17:14. | |
any terrorist organisation. OK, in the early 2000s, or maybe in the | :17:15. | :17:20. | |
last decade actually, there were misuse of our financial system. What | :17:21. | :17:28. | |
do you mean by misuse? People misused it. (CROSSTALK). Tens of | :17:29. | :17:35. | |
billions of dollars provided by the Saudis... Those were individuals, | :17:36. | :17:45. | |
actually, who took advantage of the situation, convinced people, | :17:46. | :17:50. | |
actually, to provide money, thinking that they were providing money for | :17:51. | :17:55. | |
the poor, for the people in need. But unfortunately those people | :17:56. | :17:58. | |
actually used those money to specifically finance Al-Qaeda in | :17:59. | :18:07. | |
Afghanistan. But as soon as we have seen the situation, and we've got | :18:08. | :18:11. | |
the proof that our money was being misused by these people, we have | :18:12. | :18:18. | |
changed things actually. That is a very interesting statement. You are | :18:19. | :18:22. | |
now acknowledging that significant, we can, frankly, frankly, tens of | :18:23. | :18:27. | |
billions of dollars, over years, has been misused and has gone to fund | :18:28. | :18:32. | |
and help Al-Qaeda. -- frankly. People took advantage of the | :18:33. | :18:37. | |
situation. Usually, in any country, if people want to define charity, -- | :18:38. | :18:44. | |
provide charity, no one can say no. Usually people want to provide | :18:45. | :18:48. | |
charity in order to help poor people, specifically poor | :18:49. | :18:52. | |
Muslims... Generally, people don't provide charity to those who declare | :18:53. | :18:56. | |
war on the West. Our financial system, actually, was misused, long | :18:57. | :19:02. | |
before any terrorist organisation existed. I think this is why there | :19:03. | :19:07. | |
is so much suspicion of Saudi Arabia today. In your greatest, most | :19:08. | :19:12. | |
staunch ally and supporter, the United States, you are very reliant | :19:13. | :19:16. | |
on military support from the US and all sorts of intelligence support. | :19:17. | :19:21. | |
But this is what a very senior recently retired State Department | :19:22. | :19:24. | |
official Daryl Benjamin says, a solid line of causation from the | :19:25. | :19:27. | |
slaughter in Islamic State control the Iraq and Syria goes to the | :19:28. | :19:32. | |
tragedy of 9/11 and it traces back directly to Saudi and | :19:33. | :19:40. | |
evangelisation, by which he means evangelism, through Sunni networks, | :19:41. | :19:46. | |
and the radical mosques and extremist NGOs that was born in that | :19:47. | :19:49. | |
relationship. The Americans now see you as part of the problem. Whoever | :19:50. | :19:56. | |
thinks we are part of a problem that means that they are not really | :19:57. | :20:00. | |
looking deep into the real problem. It is very simple just to accuse | :20:01. | :20:07. | |
Saudi Arabia off, you know, terrorist related activities or | :20:08. | :20:13. | |
sponsoring, which is not true -- of. We are being threatened by this | :20:14. | :20:17. | |
terrorism and we are targeted by this terrorism. And how we could in | :20:18. | :20:23. | |
any way help the rise of such a terrorist organisation, when we know | :20:24. | :20:27. | |
that these people will just target us, that is nonsense, actually. | :20:28. | :20:31. | |
Saudi Arabia never sponsored any terrorist groups or financed any | :20:32. | :20:37. | |
terrorist groups. A final thought. We began by talking about the | :20:38. | :20:40. | |
difficult Situ and today, the turbulent region. Do you fear that | :20:41. | :20:45. | |
even if you don't mean it to happen, the Saudi Arabian stamp in Yemen for | :20:46. | :20:52. | |
example, or in Syria, is maybe, inadvertently, fuelling the fires of | :20:53. | :20:59. | |
Islamist militancy extremism and terror? -- situation today. We will | :21:00. | :21:05. | |
not stand still, looking at all of these dangerous situations around | :21:06. | :21:12. | |
us, and seeing how people are playing around in the region, and | :21:13. | :21:18. | |
not protecting our country. We agree that ISIL, Al-Qaeda, all of these | :21:19. | :21:23. | |
terrorist groups, and of those, actually, who sponsor terrorists and | :21:24. | :21:28. | |
their allies, are targeting us. And we are no exception in the region. | :21:29. | :21:34. | |
And we are not immune in any way from the problems that is actually | :21:35. | :21:39. | |
spreading in the region. So, we cannot just wait and watch these | :21:40. | :21:46. | |
people doing all of this and do nothing. We have a responsibility to | :21:47. | :21:53. | |
carry out... We have a unity that we have to defend. And, therefore, | :21:54. | :22:00. | |
actually, the kingdom, actually, have developed all of the laws, | :22:01. | :22:04. | |
actually, to carry out our responsibilities. What we want from | :22:05. | :22:11. | |
the others, actually, not just to jump and accused Saudi Arabia | :22:12. | :22:16. | |
because of somebody from Saudi Arabia did so, or because Saudi | :22:17. | :22:24. | |
Arabia is an Islamic country. We are Islamic and we will always be is | :22:25. | :22:30. | |
running. But this doesn't constitute any kind of threat to anybody -- we | :22:31. | :22:35. | |
will always be Islamic. The reality we have to look at the real problem | :22:36. | :22:41. | |
in the region and see, actually, why we would do so. I mean, look at the | :22:42. | :22:47. | |
other countries who did nothing. Now, they cannot help themselves. I | :22:48. | :22:51. | |
mean, look at the sectarian problem in Iraq, for example. Look at the | :22:52. | :22:55. | |
situation in Syria, or even the situation in Yemen. We are not going | :22:56. | :23:01. | |
to wait until we find out ourselves, actually, in the same position. And | :23:02. | :23:04. | |
you feel that could happen if you don't act the way you have acted. | :23:05. | :23:08. | |
You fear that this country could sink into sectarian warfare? If we | :23:09. | :23:13. | |
do not protect the country, if we do not counter all this ideology, if we | :23:14. | :23:18. | |
do not count all this terrorism, of course, we will. -- count a. The | :23:19. | :23:26. | |
idea is to carry out our responsibility, have the | :23:27. | :23:27. | |
responsibility to achieve, which is what we are doing. And in | :23:28. | :23:34. | |
particular, let remind you of something, we are major players when | :23:35. | :23:38. | |
it comes to the international community -- let me remind you. And | :23:39. | :23:45. | |
countering terrorism. We are very active in the counter ISIL finance | :23:46. | :23:49. | |
group. We have provided information that saved lives in other countries. | :23:50. | :23:58. | |
So, we're not just carrying out our responsibilities inside the kingdom. | :23:59. | :24:04. | |
Whenever we have something to do to help in the international community | :24:05. | :24:07. | |
effort, we are not hesitating. We have to end it there. But General | :24:08. | :24:13. | |
Mansour Al-Turki, thank you very much for being on HARDtalk. Thank | :24:14. | :24:17. | |
you. You are welcome in Saudi Arabia. | :24:18. | :24:42. | |
As I speak, Storm Henry is passing to the north of Scotland. | :24:43. | :24:44. | |
The winds potentially remaining disruptive throughout the morning | :24:45. | :24:46. | |
rush hour, the Met Office still has an amber wind be prepared warning in | :24:47. | :24:50. | |
force for gusts of 60mph or 70mph, maybe 80mph, possibly a little more | :24:51. | :24:54. |