Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – Saudi Arabia announced Wednesday that it has begun talks with Iraq about opening an embassy, a move that could be a major boost to U.S. diplomacy and reconciliation efforts.
The Sunni-led kingdom has long resisted such a formal step, which would bolster the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad and signal to Iraq’s minority Sunnis that their prospects of returning to power are over.
After talks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal also said the kingdom was prepared to seriously consider participating in the international meeting President Bush announced last month to push for Arab-Israeli peace.
Saudi participation is widely considered essential for any U.S.-orchestrated meeting to be considered legitimate in the Arab world, since Saudi Arabia is the author of the Arab League peace initiative as well as the guardian of the Islamic world.
“We are interested in a peace conference that deals with substantive matters of peace, issues of real substance, not nonsubstantive issues,” al-Faisal said. “If that does so, that becomes of great interest to Saudi Arabia. … We would look very closely and very hard at attending.”
After listening to Rice’s explanation of U.S. expectations for Bush’s initiative, al-Faisal said the kingdom sees “several positive solutions for a sustainable Palestinian state, dismantling (Jewish) settlements and solving the problems of Palestinian refugees.”
But the conditional Saudi acceptance also will force the U.S. officials to ensure that the meeting is more than what al-Faisal called a “photo opportunity.” The Arab world has been highly skeptical of the Bush administration’s commitment, given repeated pledges to jump-start the moribund peace process, with only 18 months left in office.
Rice and Gates are on an unprecedented joint trip to the region this week to encourage a broad and long-term approach to stability in the Middle East, discussing potential sales of arms, the threat from Iran and how to get Palestinian-Israeli peace talks back on track.
