Turkey denounced missile attacks targeting Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh for the second time in three days.
“We strongly condemn these attacks, which have targeted civilian settlements and appear to have been neutralised by Saudi air defence systems,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Ankara also expressed its condolences to “brotherly Saudi Arabia and the Saudi people”.
A loud explosion was heard in Riyadh on Tuesday and the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV cited videos circulating on social media purporting to show a missile being intercepted over the city, Reuters reported.
Turkey’s condemnation of the attacks comes during tentative efforts to repair relations between the two countries. Bilateral ties are at an historic low point after the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the country’s consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. Turkish prosecutors are trying several Saudi officials in absentia for the killing.
Houthi forces based in Yemen have attacked Saudi Arabia with missiles on many occasions since a Saudi-led coalition was invited into the country in March 2015 to neutralise territorial threats by the group. Yemen has been enduring a civil war since September 2014, when Houthi rebels took over the capital city, Sana’a.
Ahval