RIYADH, May 7: Saudi Arabia has expressed its willingness to deal with a future transitional government in Iraq as a first step toward a permanent post-Saddam Hussein administration, the Saudi foreign minister told an Arabic TV channel on Tuesday.

“It is necessary ... to deal with this government because even if you need to send aid, how would you deliver it except through a government agency,” Prince Saud al-Faisal said in Riyadh.

This was the first indication from a major Arab country that it was ready to deal with the new interim set-up in Iraq. Arab leaders have been saying earlier they would only deal with a government in Baghdad which is representative of the Iraqi masses.

The statement comes at a time when the US is trying to set up an interim set-up in Baghdad. It has already named Paul Bremer as the new civilian administrator of Baghdad. Also, Saudi Arabia is believed to be the first Arab nation to publicly say it would acknowledge a transitional government.

“If we can speed up the establishment of a transitional government, the quicker we can set up a (permanent) government and normalize relations with the new Iraq,” Prince Saud said in a press conference broadcast by the Arab satellite television station Al-Arabiya.

The prince said such a provisional administration would be a major step toward restoring stability in Iraq in the wake of last month’s collapse of Saddam’s Baath Party regime.

Prince Saud said Saudi Arabia was consulting with the United States about developments in Iraq, including forming a temporary administration. He added that the continuing instability in Iraq “confirms the need for a different idea to the one that did not lead to stability in the region.”

Prince Saud said the repercussions on the region following regime change in Iraq should not come as a surprise. “Iraq was in one situation, and now it is in another. This in itself is a major change to the geopolitics of the region,” he said.