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Cheney in Saudi to ask for help on Iraq, Iran |
TABUK, Saudi Arabia: US Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Saudi Arabia yesterday to seek its help in Iraq, two months after King Abdullah slammed the “illegitimate foreign occupation” of that war-torn land.
Cheney, who flew on Air Force Two to the King Faisal airbase in the northern town of Tabuk from Abu Dhabi, was to have talks and dinner with the Saudi monarch during his brief visit to the kingdom.
He was greeted on arrival by Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz before travelling by motorcade to the Fahd bin Sultan palace to meet the king, the route lined by hundreds of waving soldiers and civilians.
Despite the traditional US-Saudi alliance, King Abdullah in March opened an annual Arab summit in Riyadh with a speech denouncing the “illegitimate foreign occupation” of Iraq and warning that “ugly sectarianism threatens civil war.”
Cheney will later head to Egypt and Jordan to wrap up a week-long Middle East visit aimed at encouraging Washington’s allies to help pull Iraq’s minority Sunni Muslims into the country’s fragile political process.
The vice president’s diplomatic mission also aims to win the US allies’ help in curbing the influence of a rising Iran.
Cheney’s talks in Abu Dhabi came on the eve of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s arrival in the United Arab Emirates today, in the first visit since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution by an Iranian head of state to the close US Gulf ally.
A senior source in the administration of US President George W Bush told reporters that Ahmadinejad’s visit came up during Cheney’s UAE talks.
“They have a very large neighbour less than 100 miles away... They’ll hear what he has to say,” the official said. “I’m sure they’ll have some messages for him as well.”
The US vice president also hoped to use his considerable influence in Saudi Arabia - forged during the 1991 Gulf War and his oil industry dealings - to smooth over relations badly strained by sectarian violence in Iraq.
King Abdullah refused to meet Iraq’s Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki at the Riyadh summit, and an Arab diplomat said it was because the monarch believed Maliki had deepened the sectarian divide in his country.
But a top Cheney aide, briefing reporters, said Riyadh’s other actions - including significant Iraqi debt forgiveness - spoke just as loud as that diplomatic snub.
“I think on the whole, Saudi leadership is a very good thing, given the strength and enduring nature of our relationship with the Saudis and the amount of work and co-operation we’ve done over the years,” the aide said.
The White House sees Saudi Arabia as a cornerstone ally in its campaign to isolate Iran and curtail Tehran’s nuclear programme, which Washington says is a cover for efforts to build an atomic arsenal. Iran denies the charge.
Before leaving Abu Dhabi, Cheney met yesterday UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, Prime Minister Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid al-Maktoum and the deputy commander of the UAE armed forces, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahayan, who is also crown prince of the emirate of Abu Dhabi.
On Friday, Cheney warned from the hangar deck of a US aircraft carrier in the Gulf that the US would “stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region.” – AFP
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