Riyadh, Kuwait denies green light for Israeli

By Jumana Al Tamimi, Associate Editor
Published: July 06, 2009, 00:00

Dubai: Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have made swift and clear denials over press reports that Israeli warplanes would be allowed to fly in their airspace during an attack on Iran.

An informed Saudi official branded the reports "stupid", and a "pathetic way (from Israel) to gain some recognition from some Arab countries or Muslim countries" through giving the impression that it has communications with the Kingdom.

However, these Arab and Muslim countries "didn't buy it", the official said.

"Of course, Saudi Arabia would never open its air space and land to a friendly country to launch an illegal attack on another country, let alone to open its space for a country that doesn't have any relationship with Saudi Arabia," the official explained to Gulf News.
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The Saudi official was commenting on press reports claiming the Israeli intelligence service had assured Premier Benjamin Netanyahu that Riyadh would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during ay future raid on Iran.

Israel has also denied these reports.

Moreover, Kuwait parliament speaker Jaseem Al Khorafi said his country would never allow Israeli planes to use its airspace.

"I am surprised at such a question that comes as if it were an accomplished fact," Khorafi was quoted as saying by Kuwait official news agency (KUNA). "Has the Israeli press become a source from which we may get information?" he added.

Biden, in what was described as a giving Israel a green light to eliminate the Iranian's "nuclear threat" by military force, said in an interview with ABC television on Sunday that the US "cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do."

However, US military commanders gave different positions.

Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, warned that any strike against Iran would be "unintended consequences" and would be "very destabilising".

Meanwhile, press reports noted that Israel, in a major shift of policy, sent one of its three Dolphin-class submarines through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea.

Israeli defence officials described the naval drill as a show of strategic reach in the face of Iran.

Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran insists is of a civilian nature, has raised concern in Israel, which is believed to have a huge undeclared nuclear arsenal.

Biden's statement unleashed a series of positions and statements either in support of such an attack or against it.

Biden's statement, who has called for improving relations with Iran, can be put within the "frame that the US wants to affirm to the Iranian leadership that a surprising Israeli military attack by Israel is not in the hands of the US alone," Iranian eminent analyst Mashallah Shams Al Waezeen, said.

"It is also an Israeli decision", he added in an interview with Gulf News.

Furthermore, the position expressed by Biden aims at "pressuring Iran to accept entering negotiations between Iran and the 5+1 countries," Waezeen added in reference to the five major European countries along with the US that are negotiating with Iran over its nuclear programme.

Source: Gulfnews.com
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