THE two-day visit of Iranian President Ahmadinejad which gets under way today should lay to rest suggestions voiced in other parts of the world that Saudi Arabia and Iran are rivals and that the rivalry may end up with Kingdom seeking nuclear weapons if the Islamic Republic obtains them.
This is fantasy. The visit comes after a series of meetings between Saudi and Iranian officials to sort out a number of regional problems, including attempted mediation between the Lebanese government and Hezbollah. This visit can build bridges. Iran’s ambassador to the Kingdom, Mohammad Hosseini, is right when he says that together the two countries can help resolve problems in the region and the wider Muslim world. For its part, Saudi Arabia is committed to working constructively with Tehran and has always supported its right, and everyone else’s, to have nuclear technology for energy purposes. On nuclear weapons, however, Saudi Arabia remains implacably opposed to proliferation. The policy is unambiguous: A nuclear-free Middle East. And that includes Israel as well.
While wholly supportive of working with another major government for peace, in this case Iran, there is an important caveat. Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy is based on consensus. It is not interested in attempting to lay down the law to others, either on its own or in tandem with another government. Collaboration and consensus are the key to the Kingdom’s foreign policies.
On Gulf issues it works hand in hand with its GCC partners, on Arab affairs with the Arab League and on matters relating to the Muslim world with the OIC. These are where collaboration is put into practice and where, on the basis of consensus, formal policy is made. That does not mean that there are not close partners with whom ideas can be developed. Middle East policy proposals have been worked on with the GCC, Egypt and Jordan for presentation to the Arab League.
On the Islamic front, there was the meeting last week in Islamabad of Saudi, Egyptian, Jordanian, Turkish, Pakistani, Malaysian and Indonesian foreign ministers. Specifically, Saudi Arabia has worked tirelessly behind the scenes with its GCC partners and others in the Muslim world to see what can be done to avoid an outright clash between Tehran and the international community on the nuclear issue.
The hope is that bilateral links with Iran will deepen as a result of Ahmadinejad’s visit. Bigger regional decisions, however, will have to wait till the Arab League summit in Riyadh later this month. As noted, a strategy on the Middle East’s most pressing problems (Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon) has been worked out by the Kingdom in cooperation with its GCC partners, Egypt and Jordan and will be put forward at the summit. That is where Saudi diplomacy has now to be most fully focused. All efforts have to be made to ensure that the strategy will be endorsed with no opposition. After that comes the really hard work of making it happen.
