Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal Biggest Threat to Region: Prince Muqrin

Chief of General Intelligence Prince Muqrin addressing the Manama Dialogue, the third International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) regional security summit, in the Bahraini capital late Friday. (EPA)

Mazen Mahdi, Arab News

MANAMA, 10 December 2006 — Saudi Arabia’s top intelligence official said late yesterday that Israel’s nuclear arsenal was the biggest threat to the region’s short-term and medium-term security.

Prince Muqrin, the Kingdom’s chief of general intelligence, also blamed Israel for driving other countries in the region to pursue weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

“This will also force moderate countries in the region that adopt a WMD-free policy to establish clandestine or declared nuclear programs to defend their interests and create a military balance,” he said in the keynote address to the third International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) regional security summit, the so-called Manama Dialogue.

Prince Muqrin directly linked tension in the region to the Arab-Israeli conflict, calling on key players in the international community to carry out their role in an objective and unbiased manner to ensure peaceful coexistence among the people of the region including Israel.

He said that any peace initiative should be in line with the proposal approved by the Arab League in 2002.

The deteriorating situation in Iraq, leading to a semi-civil war and attracting would-be terrorists, was a threat of similar gravity to the region’s security, Prince Muqrin said.

The continued foreign presence in Iraq only increases instability in Iraq, but Saudi Arabia does not favor an immediate withdrawal of US troops, he said. “The Americans and Iraqis should decide (the pace of withdrawal),” he said. “I do not think it is the right time for the Americans to leave now, but it should be within a time frame.”

Prince Muqrin criticized the warring Shiite and Sunni factions’ failure to observe an agreement they reached in Makkah to stop targeting all Iraqis.

The deteriorating situation in Iraq was likely to dominate the Manama Dialogue, which opened Friday night and continues through today.

The meeting, which comes just two days after the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan US panel, presented 79 recommendations to improve the Iraq situation and begin a US withdrawal, is being attended by high-level representatives from more than 20 countries, including Iran, Iraq and the United States.

One of the US panels’ key recommendations was for Washington to engage Iran and Syria in direct talks, as part of an aggressive regional diplomacy initiative in an effort to reduce sectarian violence in Iraq.

“What makes this meeting important is that it brings together not only the region but extra-regional powers that have interests in this part of the world,” said IISS-US executive director Adam Ward.

This year’s meeting in Manama, in which some 200 delegates are participating, also has representatives from Turkey, India, Japan and China.

The London-based IISS, established in 1958 by individuals interested in maintaining civilized international relations in the nuclear age, is one the world’s leading think-tanks on political-military conflicts.