Saudi Prince Abdullah:US & Saudi-time to part

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US-Saudi relations strained

 

Press Trust of India

 

Washington, October 31: The US-Saudi relations are at a "crossroads"

as Saudi Arabia is a principle source of funding for Osama bin

Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network, an American daily has said.

Commenting editorially, The Wall Street Journal says "the US support

for the house of Saud has now yielded Saudi support for those waging

war on the US homeland".

 

"Today the dominant fact of the US-Saudi relationship is that

this 'friend' is a principal source of funding for al Qaeda," it

says, adding "the US-Saudi relationship is at a crossroads". The

paper says "if a more radical regime is going to take hold in Saudi

Arabia, better to face that fact sooner rather than later. Coping

with an overtly hostile Saudi government would at least have the

virtue of clarity that does not exist today. It would also force a

decision on whether to take over the Saudi oilfields, which would put

an end to OPEC".

 

It also says that a month before the September 11 terror attacks in

the US, Saudi crown prince Abdullah had said that Saudi Arabia and

the US had separate interests. In a letter to Bush in August,

Abdullah had said that "a time comes when peoples and nations part...

It is time for the US and Saudi Arabia to look at their separate

interests," the paper says.

 

The journal says it is time the US took the prince up on his offer,

for the strains of the war on terrorism are revealing that the

longstanding US-Saudi bargain cannot hold.