Saudi Slams US Claim of King Talks with Israel's Peres

Saudi Slams US Claim of King Talks with Israel's Peres
Readers Number : 121

30/04/2009 Saudi Arabia on Thursday denied a US claim that King Abdullah met with Israeli President Shimon Peres late last year and demanded clarifications from Washington.

An unnamed Saudi official, quoted by the state-run SPA news agency, said that the claim made by US Under Secretary for Political
Affairs William Burns is "completely false and fabricated."
The US State Department must "deny the claim and provide clarification for the reasons behind such fabrication that does not serve the relations between the two friendly countries."
The official said that the allegations were carried by some media which quoted Burns as saying that King Abdullah spoke with Peres on the sidelines of an inter-faith dialogue conference hosted in November by the United Nations.

An online video posted on a Saudi opposition website showed Burns praising King Abdullah's drive to promote inter-faith dialogue, during a meeting on US-Saudi relations earlier this week in Washington.
"King Abdullah has advanced an inter-faith dialogue initiative focused on promoting tolerance and understanding among world religions," Burns said.
"On the margins of an inter-faith dialogue session last fall, the king spoke with Israeli President Shimon Peres -- the first such exchange between Saudi and Israeli leaders," he said.
"King Abdullah is also the first Saudi leader to meet the Pope," he added.

Saudi Arabia does not have ties with Israel, but since 2002 it has been promoting an Arab peace initiative which offers Israel full diplomatic ties in return for a total withdrawal from occupied Arab land.
Last November's conference was held at the initiative of Saudi
Arabia as a follow-up to efforts at promoting inter-faith dialogue in the "World Conference on Dialogue" held last July in Madrid.
At the time UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had invited both King Abdullah and Peres to attend a dinner of heads of state and government from more than a dozen countries.