March 03, 2007	Saturday	Safar 13, 1428

RIYADH: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Saudi Arabia on Saturday could lead to agreements between the two regional heavyweights that would ease the conflicts in Lebanon and Iraq, experts say.

“Saudi Arabia and Iran concur that a civil war pitting Sunnis against Shias in Lebanon cannot be allowed to happen,” Anwar Eshki, chairman of a private Jeddah-based think tank, said.

“They are undoubtedly striving to find a solution in Lebanon ... and Ahmadinejad's visit might yield a joint initiative” to break the deadlock between the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, a Sunni, and the opposition, led by the Iranian-backed Shia movement Hezbollah, he said.

Mr Ahmadinejad's talks with Saudi King Abdullah `will also lead to an understanding that will ease the conflict in Iraq’, Mr Eshki said.

The talks come ahead of a meeting of Iraq's neighbours and world powers in Baghdad on March 10 and an Arab summit in Riyadh on March 28-29 and are therefore aimed at coordinating stands, he added.

Bandar al-Aiban, who heads the foreign affairs committee of the appointed consultative council, said Mr Ahmadinejad’s visit `suggests that Iran has reached the conclusion that it must talk and agree with the (Saudi) kingdom in order to try to find a way out of the crises’ in Iraq and Lebanon.

“At the end of the day, Iran must rethink its policies ... and understand that the absence of agreement to resolve the crises in Lebanon and Iraq, as well as over its nuclear programme, will increase its international isolation,” he said.

Mr Ahmadinejad is due to hold talks with King Abdullah on Sunday.

The trip follows a series of high-level contacts between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The hardline Iranian president met King Abdullah on the sidelines of an Islamic summit in Makkah in Dec 2005, but relations have since been strained over non-Arab Iran's growing influence in Iraq and its perceived backing for Shia militias.

Saudi Arabia, a main bankroller of Lebanon, has close ties with the western-backed government in Beirut, which has been crippled by an opposition walkout and open-ended protest spearheaded by Hezbollah.

“Iran must understand that Iraq and Lebanon are Arab countries, and that (other) Arab states feel that Iranian meddling in the affairs of these two countries through their allies there has soured ties between Iran and those states and led to the internationalisation of the two crises,” said Mr Aiban.

He said Mr Ahmadinejad's visit indicates that Iran is looking to Saudi Arabia for help in ending its standoff with the West over Tehran’s `ambiguous’nuclear programme, which Washington sees as a cover for the pursuit of nuclear weapons despite Iranian denials.

Saudi Arabia wants to avert a military showdown over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but like the rest of the international community, it does not want to see Iran become a nuclear power, he said.

Mr Eshki agreed that Saudi Arabia `does not want an escalation’ which could trigger US military action against Iran and threaten vital oil shipping routes in the Gulf region.

While Riyadh does not have a solution to the nuclear row, it can help prevent an escalation by promoting a dialogue between Washington and Tehran, he said.

Mr Ahmadinejad's moderate predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, paid a landmark visit to Saudi Arabia in 1999 and another in 2002, mending relations between the two oil powerhouses which nosedived after Iran's 1979 revolution.—AFP