March 27, 2003	Thursday	Muharram 23, 1424

RIYADH, March 26: Saudi Arabia warned on Wednesday that its long-standing alliance with the United States may be damaged if the US-led war against Iraq drags on or turns into a bloodbath for Iraqi civilians.

“I believe the basics are healthy in that relationship,” Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal told foreign reporters in reply to a question.

“Definitely the war will not contribute to that relationship and definitely if it continues it may damage that relationship. That is why we are so completely interested in bringing it (the war) to an end,” he added.

Like most Arab states, key US ally Saudi Arabia strongly opposes the war and has said it will not allow attacks on Iraq to be launched from its soil.

But it remains the nerve centre for military air operations and hosts several thousand US and British airmen involved in patrolling a no-fly over southern Iraq, set up in compliance with U.N. resolutions after the 1991 Gulf War.

Top Saudi officials have made clear that if the current war ends when Iraq has been disarmed and US troops leave the region quickly, the damage to US-Saudi ties will be limited.

They have denied reports there is a plan to ask all US troops to leave the country when the war ends, but acknowledged their presence could be scaled down after the conflict is over.

The United States is Saudi Arabia’s main trade partner, with a 20 per cent share of the kingdom’s lucrative import market.

PEACE PROPOSAL: The Saudi Foreign Minister issued a clarification that a proposal for Baghdad and Washington to stop the war contained “general ideas” rather than a peace initiative.

“What the kingdom had proposed are general ideas and not an initiative. The kingdom had stressed on these ideas on many occasions,” said the foreign minister in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

The proposal stresses “the need for an immediate halt of the war, resolving the unfortunate international divisions about how to deal with Iraqi affairs, and the need to return to peaceful efforts”, the statement said.

Prince Saud reiterated that the crisis must be resolved within the “legitimate framework of the United Nations to safeguard Iraq’s national security and its civil institutions”.—Reuters / AFP