DUBAI, March 17: US Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday took his tour to Bahrain and Qatar after hearing Saudi complaints about the situation in the Palestinian territories and Saudi refusal to support US strikes against Iraq.

Cheney on Saturday visited the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia where he did not find the support the US wishes for a possible strike against Iraq. Washington has threatened Baghdad with military strikes if Iraq refuses to let UN arms inspectors to go back to the country to verify the destruction of unconventional weapons.

The US vice president held talks late on Saturday with Saudi King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah in Jeddah. Sources said Riyadh refused to allow the use of its bases by US forces to attack Iraq. Saudi Prince Sultan Air Base has about 4,500 US soldiers and an undisclosed number of warplanes. US forces have been in Saudi Arabia since Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

The official Saudi Press Agency SPA said late Saturday that talks between Fahd and Cheney focused on Israel’s military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

King Fahd was quoted as deploring what were termed as acts of extermination, killings and destruction committed by Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinians.

Cheney also held talks with Crown Prince Abdullah and discussed the crown prince’s Middle East peace initiative. The plan proposes full Arab diplomatic relations with Israel in return for the Jewish state’s withdrawal from all Arab land captured in the 1967 war.

Cheney will stop in Bahrain, home to the US Navy 5th Fleet in the Gulf. Cheney on Sunday is also visiting Qatar, the main candidate to welcome US troops if they one day are forced to leave their base in S. Arabia.

Cheney started his tour last Sunday in London and since then he has also visited Jordan, Egypt, Yemen and Oman, in addition to Saudi Arabia.

On Monday he will visit Kuwait and from there he will fly to Israel and later to Turkey.—dpa