"Of course, Saudi Arabia and possibly other regional states are making a mistake and they shouldn’t be fearful of us; we have (religiously) forbidden the nuclear bomb; why should they be afraid of us? They should fear Israel," Hashami Rafsanjani said in an interview with al-Wefaq newspaper on Sunday.

He referred to Saudi Arabia's purchase of advanced weapons, including the 3,000-km-range missiles, fighter jets, radars and other arms and existence of the US bases in the Arab country, and said, "Saudi Arabia knows that Iran is no threat."

The remarks came as Iran and the six world powers are in the midst of a final round of talks to draft a comprehensive deal over a decade-long nuclear standoff.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon claimed in May that Israel would drop a nuclear bomb on Iran, although he said “we are not there yet”.

In response to a question about Iran, Ya'alon said that “in certain cases” when “we feel like we don’t have the answer by surgical operations” Israel might take “certain steps” such as the Americans did in “Nagasaki and Hiroshima, causing at the end the fatalities of 200,000”.