U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney held talks Saturday with Saudi leaders who have expressed sharp reservations over the U.S. role in Middle East peacemaking and its intentions to attack Iraq.
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah welcomed Cheney at the airport.
Cheney then had an audience with King Fahd and had another meeting with Abdullah, including a dinner session.
Before his arrival, experts predicted Saudi Arabia was to deliver an uncompromising message that it opposes attacking Iraq and would not cooperate in military efforts to remove Saddam Hussein.
According to the British Guardian newspaper, the Saudi stance - which represents a huge groundswell of Arab opinion against a looming war with Iraq - will be a blow for Cheney, who is touring the Middle East to draw support for an extended "war on terrorism".
Cheney, on the fifth day of his tour of 11 Middle East countries, believes that a close working relationship with the Saudis is central to anything America hopes to achieve in the troubled Islamic world.
Western diplomats had predicted Arab leaders to be more supportive, at least in private. One expected that four would give tacit backing to Saddam's removal if the US could guarantee to accomplish it smoothly.
Saudi support proved vital in the 1991 war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation and the kingdom has been used as one of several bases for US-British patrols of the southern no-fly zone over Iraq.
Saudi Arabia last year refused to let the US use its territory as a base for the war in Afghanistan.
Saudi diplomatic sources say there are fears that ousting Saddam will prove more difficult than the US imagines.
(Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
