Roundup: Powell's Speech Helps Heal Saudi-U.S. Rift Over Mideast by Hong Man

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, November 25, 2001

Roundup: Powell's Speech Helps Heal Saudi-U.S. Rift Over Mideast by Hong Man

Saudi Arabia on Friday hailed the American administration's new resolve to revive the Middle East peace process, a sign which indicates that the two countries' growing rift over Mideast tends to heal.

In an interview with the press in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's recent speech on Mideast is the "welcome sign" of the U.S. assurance to peace in the region.

He added that the new U.S. initiative on Mideast also helps assuage anti-American feelings in the Arab world that may be the " lodestar of terrorism."

This was Saudi Arabia's first public reaction to the Monday's remarks of Powell on the Mideast peace, which called on the Palestinian National Authority to exert maximum efforts to "stop violence" while urging Israel to "end occupation according to the United Nations resolutions and accept a Palestinian state."

Powell also announced that he will send a new diplomatic mission to the Middle East soon to mediate an end to the nearly 14 months of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed.

However, although Powell promised that the U.S. will play "an active leader role," he offered no new proposals to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in which over 900 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed since the breakout of the bloody clashes in September last year.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, a key regional ally of the U.S., has repeatedly criticized the U.S. for, what many Arabs say, its " blind" support for Israel, demanding the U.S. to take necessary steps to stop the Israeli "aggressive actions" against Palestinians.

On November 9, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief, confirmed in a television interview in the U.S. that his country had once threatened to review its ties with the U. S. unless Washington took "active" steps to resolve the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.

He said that before September 11, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, who has been running the day-to-day affairs of the world's largest oil exporter since King Fahd suffered a stroke in 1995, sent a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush, explaining that the bilateral relations between the two allies "are at a crossroad" since the U.S. "is not ready to move ahead in finding a successful solution to the Middle East conflict."

The prince also said that President Bush had shown readiness to discuss with Saudi plans to revive the Middle East peace process after he received the "strongly worded letter."

However, Faisal added, the planned talks were put aside because of the September 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington.

Earlier this month, Bush also rejected to meet Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, saying that Arafat "was not serious about the U.S.-led war on terrorism."

The move incurred even stronger criticism from Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said that Bush's failure to meet Arafat "makes a sane man go mad," adding that his government was "angrily frustrated" that Washington had failed to begin a promised initiative to forge a final peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Since then, Powell has been making efforts to heal rift with Saudi Arabia over the Middle East in a bid to reduce any impact of the remarks by the Saudi minister.

In addition, the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan has also caused damage to the bilateral ties between Saudi Arabia and the U.S., who have been close allies for decades.

Saudi Arabia has condemned the September 11 attacks, and said it would cooperate with any effort to stamp out terrorism. However, the kingdom has refused to allow the U.S. military to use its territory to launch attacks on Afghanistan, which is harbouring Osama bin Laden, blamed by Washington as the top suspect of the September 11 attacks.

The U.S. media has said that the kingdom was doing too little to help the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism and it has been a breeding ground for Islamic militants.

Saudi Interior Minister Nayef Ibn Abdul-Aziz rejected the U.S. media accusations. In turn, he expressed his country's objection to the killing of innocent civilians in Afghanistan.