WORLD / Middle East
Iran president sends note to Saudi king
Updated: 2007-01-17 10:41
CAIRO, Egypt - Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said
Tuesday that he sent a message to Saudi King Abdullah proposing that they
cooperate in helping stabilize Iraq.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez (R) and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad meet at Miraflores Palace in Caracas January 13, 2007.
[Reuters]
Ahmadinejad's comments came as Washington is trying to rally its Arab
allies and isolate Iran.
"We, Saudis and other neighboring countries can help the Iraqi people to
take the lead to consolidate their government's capability to stabilize
and maintain security in their country," Ahmadinejad told the Saudi-owned
satellite television channel.
"I sent a message to King Abdullah in this regard and the answer,
generally, was positive," the Iranian president said in the interview
taped Saturday in Venezuela, one of the countries on his Latin American
tour.
Iran's top national security official, Ali Larijani, had delivered a
message to Abdullah, the official Saudi Press Agency reported Sunday, but
did not reveal its contents.
Iran's overture to Saudi Arabia appeared to be an attempt to counter
American efforts to rally its allies in the region and isolate Tehran.
Saudi Arabia has shown increasing alarm over Iran's growing influence in
Iraq and across the Arab world, even as it has grown more worried over
Iraq's chaos.
The US has previously asked Saudi Arabia to use its close ties to Iraq's
Sunni minority to encourage reconciliation with the Shiite-led
government. Saudi Arabia has pressed the US to ensure that Shiite
militias are reined in.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, ahead of her regional tour, rejected
anew proposals for opening a diplomatic dialogue with Iran and Syria as a
way to help stabilize Iraq.
She said Iran would demand US concessions on its nuclear program while
Damascus would ask for an easing of the US opposition to Syrian policies
in Lebanon as a price for cooperation.
Ahmadinejad said the Americans were in "trouble and they are seeking a
way to get out of it while ensuring their economic interests and increase
their hegemony over the region."
Addressing Iran's nuclear program, Ahmadinejad reiterated that "we are
always ready to talk, but if the dialogue is used as a means to impose
something which is illegal then they should realize that it is a dead
end."
Iranian officials have said that efforts to make Iran roll back its
nuclear activities are not legal because it has the right to a peaceful
nuclear program as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
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