January 18, 2002	Friday	Ziqa'ad 3, 1422

RIYADH, Jan 17: Washington may reduce troop numbers stationed in Saudi Arabia, the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Robert Jordan, hinted while talking to the press here on Wednesday, after the annual meeting of the Saudi-US Business Council.

The council meeting coincided with a visit by the US Assistant Secretary of State for Political and Military Affairs Lincoln Bloomfield to the kingdom.

“He is here for consultations with the Saudi government to review our presence here and discuss what we need and what we don’t need,” the US ambassador told the press. “We were going to reduce our troops after the Gulf War any way,” he added. He did not elaborate any further on this.

Meanwhile, Saudi and US officials pledged on yesterday to work together against what they termed ‘bad media publicity’ in both countries. “Both our countries have been targeted.

There are many who have sought to use these events to drive a wedge between us,” said Abdulaziz Al-Quraishi, head of the Saudi-US Business Council.

The US envoy in Saudi Arabia told the Council the “enormous and often erroneous media attention” given to perceived failures in the partnership should galvanise the leaders of both the countries to work together.

“The serious issue before us is how to overcome the corrosive and negative publicity that has arisen in both the countries,” the US envoy said.

Mr Jordan dismissed as ‘mere rumours’, reports that many Saudi students had left the United States after the attacks, that the US authorities were singling out Arabs for bad treatment and that Saudi accounts had been frozen.

Saudi Minister of Finance and National Economy Ibrahim Al- Assaf in his key note address to the annual meeting of the Council reaffirmed the Saudi government’s decision to address the challenges created in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

He said reforms will be carried out in the civil service and financial discipline will be enforced.

A draft income tax law is also under consideration, he disclosed. The customs tariff was also being streamlined to overcome the budget deficit, he told the gathering.