Saudi Arabia toughens line against Bashir warrant

Sun Mar 15, 2009 3:23pm EDT

RIYADH, March 15 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia on Sunday toughened the tone of its opposition to the International Criminal Court's decision to issue a war crimes indictment against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

"It's a politicised decision, otherwise it would not have come at this particular time ... despite the counterproductive results that it will yield," Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told reporters in Riyadh.

"This decision will not lead to the stability of Sudan or solve the Darfur issue," he added. "We stand by Sudan with our heart and soul."

Diplomats say Saudi Arabia is reluctant to be seen as less supportive than its regional arch-foe Iran, which despatched Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani to Khartoum in support of Bashir, accused by the ICC of masterminding genocide in Sudan's Darfur region.

"They don't want a prominent Arab country like Sudan to end up being the latest addition to Iran's growing circle of friends ... after Syria," a Western diplomat said.

Earlier this month, an editor at the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper wrote in a commentary that, by supporting Bashir, Iran had granted a seal of approval to "this kind of tyranny against the people of Darfur".

But this week, a Saudi cabinet statement expressed "strong dissatisfaction" with the court's decision, and voiced support for Sudan's "sovereignty, stability and territorial integrity".

Saudi Arabia, which sees itself as the leader of mainstream Sunni Islam, is concerned about the growing regional influence of non-Arab, Shi'ite Muslim Iran.

International experts say at least 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur, a mainly desert region in western Sudan. Khartoum says 10,000 have died. The conflict began when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the government in 2003.

Many Arab and African governments accuse the International Criminal Court of double standards, saying it has failed to tackle alleged war crimes by Israel against Arabs or by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Reporting by Souhail Karam; Editing by Kevin Liffey)




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