RIYADH, 15 October — Saudi Arabia will not provide any assistance for the planned US military offensive against Iraq, Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, announced yesterday.
“Saudi Arabia will not provide any assistance in any strikes against Iraq,” Prince Sultan said in comments published in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper.
“The Kingdom has a special status in the Arab and Muslim worlds, as it is home to the two holy mosques. It will not sacrifice this status for the sake of anyone,” the prince said.
Prince Sultan, however, urged Baghdad “not to provide the opportunity to anyone to find the justification for launching a military offensive against Iraq”.
Iraq should leave its doors wide open for all international inspectors in order to foil any pretext for launching military strikes, Prince Sultan said, adding that he did not believe a US-led offensive against Iraq was “inevitable”.
Iraqi leaders should comply with and implement “all UN Security Council resolutions, including what might be issued in the future. Iraq should act in a responsible way,” he added.
In Algeria, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal echoed Prince Sultan, saying Riyadh was opposed to a war on Iraq and will not participate in any possible US strike against its northern neighbor.
“We will refuse to enter into a war against Iraq,” Prince Saud told a news conference in the town of Tiaret after talks with Algerian President Abdulaziz Bouteflika.
“I had never said that Saudi Arabia agrees to allow the use of its territory to strike Iraq,” he added, in a reply to a question on whether Saudi Arabia would let the US use its territories as a launching pad for strikes on Iraq.
He said that if the Security Council issued a new resolution under “article seven of the UN Charter”, every country had to cooperate accordingly. “But this resolution would not force every state to participate in the war and open its sky and land for use (in that war),” he added.
Prince Saud said his country would focus on diplomatic efforts to ward off a US strike against Iraq.
In Doha, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said yesterday no Arab soldier would join an eventual US attack on Iraq. “All Arab states reject military action against Iraq and no Arab soldier will take part in such action,” he said at the end of a one-day visit to Qatar, quoted by the Qatari News Agency (QNA).
Moussa denied that the Arabs were “watching US threats against Iraq as mere spectators.”
Meanwhile, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said yesterday that, despite reports to the contrary, Iraq had not softened its position on UN weapons inspections of presidential palaces, a key sticking point with Washington.
Asked if Iraq maintained its position on inspections of the palaces, Ramadan told reporters in Baghdad: “Certainly, Iraq is still on its position.”
He gave no further details but confirmed that UN weapons inspectors would be allowed back into the country on Oct. 19 in line with an “initial agreement” with the United Nations.
Ramadan was quoted by Germany’s Der Spiegel news magazine on Saturday as saying the inspectors “can search and inspect however and wherever they would like”, raising speculation that Baghdad was relenting on access to eight palaces.
