Prince Turki Al-Faisal

Five years on from the start of the bloody civil war in Syria, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, told CNBC that the global community has “done nothing” to help.

Speaking to CNBC from the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Prince Turki said there had been little progress over Syria. The civil war has prompted hundreds of thousands of Syrians to flee their home country on top of the 260,000 people estimated to have died in the conflict so far, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“The world community has been sitting back and doing nothing,” Prince Turki told CNBC on Tuesday. “Now there is talk of the Vienna process (Syrian peace talks) and I don’t know why, when it comes to the Middle East, it’s always a process…(but) we want finality. The world community has the means to put an end to this massacre.”

Prince Turki said Saudi Arabia had severed diplomatic relations with Iran “because of what they have done.”

Prince Turki was asked what kind of message he would have for Iran. “Fix your act, remove your troops from Arab territories; they’ve just admitted to having 200,000 IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guards) troops all over the Arab world, why are they there? They should get out, they’re the cause of problems there.”

Regarding economy, Prince Turki said that enough work had been done to prepare the country for tougher times. “During the boom years, a lot was done to prepare for potential downturns like what happened recently…There are a great deal of opportunities that have been prepared for in the past 10 years,” he said.

“We are diversifying our economy,” he added. “I am really quite satisfied in my own mind that things are going to be much better than is thought by those in the media and among pundits and so-called experts.”

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