PARIS, 22 February 2004 — Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said yesterday Saudi Arabia is yet to be officially informed of a new US initiative to promote democracy in the Arab world. He said the initiative would be taken up at an Arab summit in Tunis on March 29-30.
Speaking after talks here with French President Jacques Chirac, the Saudi minister said the Tunis summit would also discuss a Saudi Middle East peace plan, adopted at an Arab League summit in Beirut two years ago.
The Saudi plan offers to normalize Arab relations with Israel in return for full withdrawal from territories seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
“We hear the press talk of this (US) initiative but we have not received anything official about it,” the prince said. “Since it concerns the Middle East, it will certainly be discussed at the Arab League (summit).”
Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington was considering a major international initiative aimed at encouraging democratic reforms in the Middle East and was looking for ways to “institutionalize” such a project.
Prince Saud said his talks with Chirac had emphasized the “broad convergence of views between Saudi Arabia and France.”
A French presidential spokeswoman said Chirac and Prince Saud had agreed that any democratic initiative for the Arab world should be pursued in parallel with a revival of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
“France and Saudi Arabia share the view that an initiative aimed at backing modernization and reform in the Arab and Muslim world must necessarily be coupled with a revival of a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem,” she said.
Prince Saud is on a European trip of France, Belgium, Switzerland and Poland. The trip aimed at reviving the road map which targets the creation of a Palestinian state in 2005 but which has made little progress since its launch in June.
Neither Chirac nor the presidential spokeswoman reacted publicly to a statement made by Prince Saud in Bern. The prince accused the international community of double standards regarding nuclear weapons in the Middle East since it did not question Israel’s nuclear arms.
A French foreign policy source noted, however, that Chirac “was aware of the statement” and that “on a personal basis” he shared Prince Saud’s concern.
The foreign policy source said Chirac “would inevitably have to deal with the issue of Israeli nuclear weapons, if only because it was France which in the 1950s played a pivotal role in providing Israel with the materials that allowed it to build its first nuclear devices and permitted Tel Aviv to construct its nuclear testing facility at Dimona.”
Prince Saud also suggested that he was not opposed to the terms of a Middle East plan put forward by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.
Prince Saud also emphasized Saudi Arabia’s efforts to institute comprehensive reforms covering economic, political, educational, judicial and administrative fields.
In an address at the European Policy Center in Brussels, Prince Saud said it was not Islam but injustice and depravation which were to blame for the spread of terrorism.
“It is not at all reasonable to accuse a 1,400-year-old culture and civilization of being a breeding ground for terrorism. Your enemy here is not Islam and Muslims. The enemy is the various forms of injustice and deprivation that prevail in the Arab and Islamic world,” he said. “Such a situation provides a fertile ground for terrorism which is the real enemy and we are all partners and able to confront this evil,” the prince said, calling for joint international efforts to combat all forms of terror.
