RIYADH, Dec 2: Saudi Arabia on Saturday denied it is ready to launch a `massive’ intervention to help Iraq’s Sunni community against ‘Iran-backed Shia attacks’ if the US pulls out its troops.
“What the Washington Post attributed on Wednesday to columnist Nawaf Obaid is groundless ... The writer does not represent any official side in Saudi Arabia,” an official source told SPA news agency.
“What he (Obaid) published represents only his personal view and does not reflect in any way the kingdom's policy and positions, which invariably uphold the security, unity and stability of Iraq with all its sects,” he said.
Writing in the Washington Post on Wednesday, Nawaf Obaid, a security and energy adviser to the Saudi ambassador to the United States, said the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq could result in Saudi Arabia opening the gates to provide Iraq’s Sunnis funds, arms and logistical support to ‘counter Tehran’s support for Iraqi Shia fighters’.
Iraq's Shia leaders on Thursday expressed anger at the remarks.
Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki said he would ‘not countenance any language interfering in Iraq on the pretext of defending sects’. Iraq’s charge d’affaires in Riyadh, Mohammed Redha Obaid Jassem, hailed Saudi Arabia for dissociating itself from Mr Obaid’s article.
Riyadh’s `rejection of the ideas published by Obaid confirms Saudi Arabia’s well-known stand, which is keen on preserving the security, stability, and unity of Iraq with all its political, sectarian and ethnic groups’, Jassem said.
Mr Obaid’s Washington Post piece, which he said reflected his own views and not the Saudi government’s, came just days after US Vice-President Dick Cheney flew to Riyadh to consult King Abdullah on Iraq.
It also followed an official cabinet statement in which Riyadh implicitly expressed concern about the growing influence of Iran in Iraq.
The cabinet warned against upsetting the `social balance’ in the country -- an apparent allusion to the perceived marginalisation of the Sunni community by the ruling Shias amid a wave of tit-for-tat sectarian killings.
A Riyadh-based western diplomat said Saudi Arabia was concerned about the impact that the sectarian fighting might have on Iraq's unity and made its concerns clear to Mr Cheney when he visited the country on Nov 25.
But `although Saudi Arabia supports the Sunnis in Iraq, it is keen on maintaining good ties with Iraqi Shia factions’, the diplomat said.—AFP
