Iran has been playing it cool as it watches the furore over the disappearance of writer Jamal Khashoggi create a crisis for its regional rival Saudi Arabia. As of Wednesday, the government had yet to make any official comment on the alleged murder of Khashoggi who vanished after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Barraged by questions at his weekly press conference on Monday, foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said only that Iran was monitoring events. The Iranian press has been reprinting the gruesome claims from Turkish and other international sources that Khashoggi was tortured and dismembered inside the consulate, and on Wednesday alleged a cover-up by Riyadh and Washington. “US, Turkey and Saudi colluding to close the murder case of Jamal Khashoggi,” read the headline on Wednesday’s Jomhuri Eslami, a conservative paper, as it reported on US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Riyadh and Ankara. “Pompeo’s mission in travelling to Riyadh and then Turkey is to cover up Saudi brutality and scandal by making up stories, and this very project is an excuse to keep milking the Saudis (for weapons’ contracts),” added the Javan newspaper, considered close to the Revolutionary Guards. Reza Ghabishavi, in the reformist Arman newspaper, acknowledged the silence from Iran’s leaders over the case. “The whole world… has reacted, but after two weeks, Iran has made no remarks,” he wrote. “Of course, it’s obvious the whole thing is in the interests of Iran because on the one hand it has caused serious differences between America and Saudi Arabia, and on the other hand, the young prince’s reforms in Saudi Arabia have been destroyed in the public opinion of the world,” he added. ‘Terrorist Wahhabis’ Ghabishavi also pointed out that Khashoggi was no friend of Iran, having strongly criticised the country’s foreign interventions in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. The case comes just a few weeks before full US sanctions are reimposed on Iran following Washington’s decision to scrap the 2015 nuclear deal. Although the sanctions have contributed to a sharp economic downturn in Iran, its leaders have relished a rare opportunity to hold the moral high ground on the international scene, as much of the world criticises the aggression of US moves against Iran. “Everyone knows that America has lost legally and politically by giving up on its international obligations and that we have achieved victory,” said President Hassan Rouhani in a speech on Sunday. The Tehran Times emphasised that Khashoggi’s alleged assassination was the inevitable result of the West’s long-running support for Saudi monarchs. “This is your own doing,” wrote editor-in-chief Mohammad Ghaderi, addressing Western governments. “You pick puppets to rule over (their) lands… and back terrorist Wahhabis,” he said, referring to the fundamentalist Saudi interpretation of Islam. Published in Daily Times, October 18th 2018.