00:00Our international diplomatic editor, Nick Robertson, is joining me now from Saudi Arabia.
00:04And Nick, obviously, this is a key question of how this is playing out with the crown prince
00:08in Saudi Arabia, as well as what these other leaders in the region are saying tonight.
00:14Yeah, look, I think the question on the minds of all the leadership around the region at the
00:18moment is, what is Iran's leadership going to do next? And does it also have a singular
00:26leadership? And that's a very core question, because the assessment that I'm hearing from
00:32sources here is that what happens over the next 12 to 24 hours will really be key for indicating
00:38what happens over the next week and beyond that. There is a very, very strong diplomatic
00:44message being sent from the region here. There was a virtual meeting of the GCC's ministers,
00:50the foreign ministers, the Saudi foreign minister here, having a statement saying that they can
00:56condemn the flagrant and unjustified attacks on the GCC countries by Iran, and that they
01:03stress that it was the country's right to take all necessary measures, that's their words,
01:09all necessary measures to protect its security and stability. And that very much reflects what
01:15we heard from the Saudi kingdom a few hours before that, which was calling Iran's strikes,
01:23targeting areas in Saudi cowardly, because as you mentioned there, Saudi Arabia very clearly had
01:30made it publicly known to Iran, and they say Iran was aware that Saudi airspace was not being used for
01:36attacks on Iran. And the very clear messaging coming from the foreign ministry on this particular
01:43issue, and that is, you know, in the light of these, and again, it sounds very similar to the language
01:47used by the GCC here. In the light of this unjustified aggression, the kingdom affirms it will take
01:59all necessary measures, again, all necessary measures to defend its security, protect its territory,
02:08its citizens, its residents, including the option of responding to the aggression. So this is strong
02:23diplomatic language, and it's this kind of language that it's hoped in this region causes the Iranian
02:30leadership, whatever it is, to pause and desist in the strikes on these GCC countries.
02:36And they're squarely at the center of all of this and host major U.S. military facilities inside them.
02:42Nick Robertson on the ground in Riyadh. Thank you for that report. We'll check back in with you as we
02:45hear
02:46more from these leaders as all of this is playing out and everyone's watching it extremely closely.
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