RIYADH, 18 March 2003 — Very few of the thousands of US citizens living in Saudi Arabia have left the Kingdom despite a looming US-led war on Iraq, a US Embassy official here said yesterday.

“Very few of the estimated 35,000-40,000 Americans in Saudi Arabia have left — maybe some 35 dependents of embassy staff,” said John Burgess, counselor for public affairs. “Some US companies have asked dependents to leave, but not very many (have left),” he said.

Burgess said the State Department had authorized non-essential personnel at the embassy and dependents to leave, but this was optional. The department recommended that US citizens do not travel to Saudi Arabia and the embassy had for the past several weeks also advised US nationals here to “consider their situation,” but there had been no specific order or advice for them to leave, unlike in neighboring Kuwait.

“Countries that received departure orders yesterday, like Syria, Israel and Kuwait, are considerably more at risk than Saudi Arabia,” the official said, recalling that US citizens had not been asked to leave the Kingdom during the 1991 Gulf War.

Burgess said there were some 35,000 US civilians in Saudi Arabia.

In separate announcements released just hours after the leaders of the United States, Britain and Spain gave the UN Security Council a Monday deadline to act to disarm Iraq, the State Department said it was ordering the diplomats to leave for security reasons. The statements were accompanied by warnings for US citizens to cancel any plans to travel to the three countries and for Americans already there to depart promptly.

The US State Department last week implemented so-called “authorized departure” schemes for non-essential diplomats and the families of all embassy personnel in Oman and the United Arab Emirates to further reduce its diplomatic presence in the Gulf ahead of an anticipated war with Iraq.

The announcements were accompanied by travel warnings for the two countries.

But in Oman, spokespeople for the US, British, French and German embassies said yesterday their nationals were staying put.

An estimated 1,500 US citizens and around 6,500 Britons live in Oman. The smaller French and German communities number around 360 and 250, respectively.