RIYADH, Nov 13: After months of trading charges over Iraq, terrorism and democracy in the Middle East, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal sought on Sunday to repair relations with a new “strategic dialogue” and pledges of more cooperation in the future.
The two asides after their ‘strategic dialogue’ in Jeddah on Sunday decided to launch six working groups to improve their coordination and efforts on combating terrorism, ensuring steady Saudi oil production and granting more visas to Saudi students and visitors to the United States.
At a joint news conference later, the Saudi foreign minister complained that because of a media focus on negative developments, Americans did not understand the lengths that Saudi Arabia had gone to combat Al Qaeda and other extremist groups.
“We and the United States are working very hard in order to affect public opinion on both sides,” he said. Ms Rice on her part praised Saudi efforts on terrorism, but said more needed to be done. “We believe that we’ve made progress but there is always more progress that can be made,” she said, adding that “there is I believe no lack of will” on the part of the Saudis.
Prince Saud on his part also retracted a criticism he had made earlier this year while in Washington that American policies in Iraq were causing the country to disintegrate and become dominated by Iran. Since then, the foreign minister said, Saudi Arabia and other countries had signed up to an Arab League-sponsored conference, to be held in Cairo on Nov 19, to bring reconciliation among Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish and other factions in Iraq, a conference that also is supported by the leadership of Iraq and the United States. “Now that that step has been taken, my fears which I had expressed earlier are much more eased today than they were at the time that I expressed them,” he said.
On Iraq, Ms Rice and State Department officials, while expressing support for the Arab League meeting, have also warned that it not be used to substitute for the electoral process unfolding in Iraq itself, in which the Baath Party and former top aides to Saddam Hussein have been barred from running or participating.
“It is, of course, an Iraqi process, and if the Iraqis themselves are not the owners of that process, it will not work,” Ms Rice said.
Ms. Rice flew to Saudi Arabia Saturday night after meeting the officials in Manama, Bahrain, on the efforts to promote democracy among the authoritarian governments and kingdoms of the Middle East.
Earlier, the Saudi-US Joint Commission for Strategic Dialogue meeting held under the co-chairmanship of Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Foreign Minister, and US Secretary of State Dr Rice reviewed aspects of bilateral cooperation and means of establishing new working groups.
