Saudis denounce U.S. over crisis

Press, 9 August 1982, Page 6

Saudis denounce U.S. over crisis

NZPA Bahrain Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies are growing impatient with what one senior Gulf politician said yesterday was the Reagan Administration’s shabby handling of the Lebanon crisis.

In a rare though implicit denunciation of the United States, Saudi Arabia at the week-end also called on big powers to stop backing what it called Israeli aggression in Lebanon. It made no threats, but gulf analysts said that Saudi Arabia had sprung the 1973 oil embargo on the United States without warning.

The Gulf politician, who is well briefed on Saudi policy but who did not want to be identified said that had it not been for Saudi pressure. on Washington, Israeli forces would have probably stormed west Beirut a long time ago.

“The Gulf States have lost all" respect for, and confidence in, the United States following its shabby performance since Israel in-

vaded Lebanon,” he said. Kuwait has told Washington that deeds, not words, were needed to halt Israeli attacks on Beirut. King Fahd, who came to power in Saudi Arabia a week after Israeli troops moved into Lebanon on June 6, has been under increasing pressure from other Arab

countries and the Palestine Liberation Organisation to retaliate against U.S. backing of Israel. Since Israeli forces trapped some of the guerrillas in west Beirut, King Fahd has received a stream of leading Arab visitors, including the Syrian President (Mr Hafez Assad). He has spoken by telephone to President Ronald Reagan and has twice sent a senior envoy to Washington to try to forestall a threatened all-out Israeli assault on west Beirut.-

A sign that Saudi Arabia, a main trade partner of the United States, is responding to pressure from other Arab countries is its reported change of heart on attending an Arab summit meeting which would likely consider calls for action against Washington over Lebanon.

The Saudis were also instrumental in drawing up a •six-point Arab League plan last month under which the P.L.O. officially agreed for the first time to withdraw its fighters from Beirut.