The United States' various intelligence agencies revealed today (Thursday) that Saudi Arabia is actively producing ballistic missiles with the help of China, the US news network CNN reported.
The exposure highlights the slump in relations between Washington and Riyadh with the Iranian threat to the Gulf states in the background.
Riyadh has previously bought ballistic missiles made in China but has never developed its own missile program and has not produced ballistic missiles itself, up to this point, apparently due to reliance on American technological and military superiority in the region.
According to the report, the White House has in recent months received significant evidence of an exchange of knowledge and technology between Saudi Arabia and China, as well as the construction of production facilities in Saudi territory.
According to the American news network, the discovery of the Saudi missile program could complicate the dynamics of the forces in the region and the attempt to strive for a nuclear agreement with Iran.
Washington fears that Iran will insist on its ballistic missile program, arguing that the Saudis' armament with medium- and long-range missiles endangers its well-being.
"Although the Iranian missile program is under constant scrutiny, Riyadh's ballistic missile program has not been comprehensively examined at all," Professor Jeffrey Lewis, an expert in weapons and armaments at the Middlbori Institute in Washington, told CNN.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are in open conflict in Yemen with Iranian-made weapons used by the country's Houthi rebels to strike Saudi territory.
Pro-Iranian militias have in the past fired Iranian-made drones at Saudi Arabia's oil refineries, causing enormous damage.
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