JEDDAH, 10 December — The Kingdom is prepared to take custody of any Saudis captured in Afghanistan and vows to punish those found to have been criminally involved there. This was stated by Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal in an interview to the Washington Post.

"These are our sons, we’ll take them," Prince Saud said in the interview published yesterday. "Those who are criminally involved will be punished. But they are our responsibility... We hope other countries will do the same."

Saudis are believed to be among an unknown number of the so-called Arab Afghans who, along with other fighters from non-Arab Muslim countries, form the backbone of Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.

Neither the Northern Alliance rebel coalition nor the United States has provided specific numbers or nationalities for the non-Afghans who have surrendered or been captured.

The United States has insisted that they not be released, as many captured Afghan Taleban troops have been.

As for Bin Laden, Prince Saud said: "He is not a Saudi citizen ... he is an international terrorist. I don’t know the legal side of the argument, who has the right to him first."

Saudi Arabia stripped Bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship in 1994.

"If the United States is going to catch him, I’m sure they’re going to make a military tribunal and try him. Apparently this is in the offing, isn’t it?" he said.

"I assume it has to do with the crimes that he has committed. But when it is legal issue, certainly he is involved in crimes in Saudi Arabia... We will pursue our rights as the legal order allows us to," the prince added.

US President George W. Bush met Prince Saud on Friday and thanked him for Saudi Arabia’s help in the US-led war on terrorism.

"They’ve been very cooperative. The president expressed his appreciation. It was a very good meeting," Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. told reporters after the meeting.

Saudi Arabia voiced skepticism at US law enforcement conclusions that as many as 15 of the 19 hijackers responsible for the attacks were Saudi citizens.

Administration officials have said they believed that most of Al-Qaeda’s funding came from money diverted from Muslim charities and wealthy philanthropists, many of them Saudi-based.

A team from the US State and Treasury departments, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Council is in Saudi Arabia to discuss cooperation in the financial war against terrorism.

The team will discuss the establishment of a mechanism to supervise the activities of charities in the Kingdom.

The Saudi press has also been critical of US actions — including alleged mistreatment and harassment of innocent students and other Saudi citizens in the United States.

Card said that Bush and Prince Saud also discussed the worsening situation in the Middle East. Riyadh has called on Washington to deepen its direct involvement in the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Saudi Arabia, along with most of the Arab world, has resisted the United States’ labeling as terrorists the armed groups fighting Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza and in Lebanon.

In the interview, Prince Saud repeated his government’s backing for a United Nations resolution that would define terrorism, something the United States has resisted.

Asked whether Saudi Arabia would approve of the United States taking its military campaign against terrorism to other countries beyond Afghanistan, Prince Saud said such decisions should be submitted to the United Nations.