Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz called on the international community to take a "firm stand" against Iran Thursday, at a time when the Kingdom fears that the US President-elect Joe Biden will revive the nuclear agreement with Tehran and ease the sanctions on it.

"The kingdom affirms the seriousness of the Iranian regional regime's project, its interference in countries, its support for terrorism and extremism, and fanning the flames of sectarianism through its various arms," King Salman said in his annual speech to the Shura Council via video technology.

He added in a speech broadcast Thursday morning that Saudi Arabia calls for the need to take a firm stance by the international community towards it that guarantees a radical treatment of the Iranian regime’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, development of its ballistic missile program and its interference in the internal affairs of other countries, its sponsorship of terrorism and its threat to international peace and security.

The kingdom and Iran have been locked in a regional influence struggle for decades.

Analysts say the kingdom is concerned that the Biden administration is seeking to return to the nuclear deal that Donald Trump withdrew from, easing sanctions on Tehran, and pursuing a hard-line policy on the human rights issue that the Republican president turned a blind eye to.

The Kingdom was the first foreign country Trump visited, shortly after his election in May 2017, and he established close relations with its leaders.

Trump's relations with the kingdom and other wealthy Gulf states contrast with the lukewarm relationship that linked these oil-rich countries to his predecessor, Barack Obama, who, by signing an agreement with Iran over its nuclear file, raised the concerns of Saudi Arabia and its neighbors.

Biden was Obama's deputy throughout his two terms of office.

In his speech, the Saudi king accused Iran again of supporting the Houthi rebels in Yemen, where the kingdom leads a military coalition in support of an internationally recognized government.

He said that the Kingdom "condemns the terrorist Houthi militia supported by the Iranian regime for violating international laws and customary rules by launching explosive drones and ballistic missiles at civilians in the Kingdom, in a deliberate and systematic manner."

He also stressed that the Kingdom would continue to stand by "with the Palestinian people to establish their independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital," without mentioning the recent normalization agreements between Israel and the Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.

Riyadh asserts that it will not normalize relations with the Hebrew state before progress is made on the Israeli occupation-Palestinian negotiation track, despite the presence of signs of rapprochement between it and the Israeli occupier.