Saudi Arabia is capable of responding to attacks: King

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman said on Tuesday that the Kingdom was capable of dealing with the consequences of attacks on its vital oil installations.

Chairing the weekly session of the Council of Ministers at Al-Salam Palace in Jeddah, the Monarch said that such cowardly attacks do not only target the vital installations of the Kingdom, but also global oil supplies, threatening the stability of the global economy, reports Saudi Gazette.

In a statement to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) following the session, Minister of Media Turki Al-Shabanah said that the Cabinet had reviewed the damage caused by the attacks on Saudi Aramco installations and it called on world governments to confront them regardless of their origin.

While reiterating that the Kingdom will defend its land and vital facilities and it is able to respond to those acts whatever their source, the Cabinet called on the international community to take tougher measures to stop these blatant attacks that threaten the region as well as the security of oil supplies and the global economy, and to hold accountable and deter those behind them.

"This cowardly attack on the largest and most important crude oil processing plants in the world is an extension of repeated attacks on vital facilities which threatened the freedom of navigation and affected the stability of the growth of the global economy," the statement said.

At the outset of the session, the King expressed thanks and appreciation of the leaders of countries, officials of states, regional and international organizations and all those who voiced condemnation of the sabotage attack on two Saudi Aramco plants in Abqaiq and Khurais.

Al-Shabanah said the Cabinet reiterated that the aim of this unprecedented sabotage aggression that threatens the international peace and security is directed primarily at global energy supplies, and it is an extension of previous acts of aggression on Saudi Aramco's pumping stations by using Iranian weapons.

It called on the international community to shoulder its responsibilities in condemning those behind it and clearly confronting these barbaric acts that had hit the nerve of the global economy.

Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman briefed the Cabinet on the serious consequences of the blatant sabotage attack on Saudi Aramco oil plants in Abqaiq and Khurais, which according to preliminary estimates, led to the suspension of quantities of crude oil supplies estimated at 5.7 million barrels, in addition to the suspension of the production of associated gas estimated at two billion cubic feet per day, and a decrease of about 50 percent in the supplies of ethane gas and natural gas liquids.

Al-Shabanah said the King briefed the Cabinet on his telephone call with Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas, stressing the Kingdom's condemnation and categorical rejection of the Israeli Prime Minister's intention to annex territories from the occupied West Bank.

"The Cabinet considered this measure as null and void as a whole and a serious escalation against the Palestinian people and a flagrant violation of the Charter of the United Nations, the principles of the international law, customs, treaties and charters," the statement said while calling on the international community to shoulder its legal, moral and humanitarian responsibilities to confront Israeli crimes and violations against the Palestinian people.

The Cabinet welcomed the resolution, adopted by the extraordinary meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states held in Jeddah, which emphasized the centrality of the Palestinian cause and Jerusalem to the Islamic nation.