RIYADH: A senior Saudi Arabian diplomat and member of the ruling royal family has raised the spectre of nuclear conflict in the Middle East if Iran comes close to developing a nuclear weapon.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to Washington, warned senior Nato military officials that the existence of such a device “would compel Saudi Arabia ... to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences”.

He did not state explicitly what these policies would be, but a senior official in Riyadh who is close to the prince said on Wednesday his message was clear.

“We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don't. It's as simple as that,” the official said. “If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, that will be unacceptable to us and we will have to follow suit.”

Officials in Riyadh said Saudi Arabia would reluctantly push ahead with its own civilian nuclear programme. Peaceful use of nuclear power, Turki said, was the right of all nations. He was speaking earlier this month at an unpublicised meeting at RAF Molesworth, the airbase in Cambridgeshire, UK, used by Nato as a centre for gathering and collating intelligence on the Middle East and the Mediterranean.

According to a transcript of his speech, Turki told his audience Iran was a “paper tiger with steel claws” that was “meddling and destabilising” across the region.—Dawn/Guardian News Service