Bush meets Saudi FM at White House
WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush held talks here Friday with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal on what was expected to touch on the Palestinian-Israeli peace process and Lebanon, officials said.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said Bush planned to meet the Saudi foreign minister in the Oval Office in the morning, with another official confirming that the meeting actually took place.
Bush "looks forward to discussing with him a wide range of regional issues including the president's recent trip to the Middle East, to the region, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the situation in Lebanon," Stanzel said.
A spokeswoman for the National Security Council later confirmed that the meeting between the president and Prince Saud took place but declined to provide any details about what was discussed.
The Saudi embassy in Washington also declined to comment.
Prince Saud, whose country is the world's biggest oil producer, joined Bush last November in Annapolis, Maryland for an international conference to launch the first serious Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in seven years.
A US official who was not privy to the meeting told AFP that US and Arab officials have recently discussed key issues concerning Beirut, including UN plans to set up a Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
The international court is designed to try suspects in the murders of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri and 22 others in a massive bombing on February 14, 2005. It will also look into attacks against other anti-Syrian figures.
"The US has discussed the Lebanon tribunal with a number of Arab allies in recent days," including funding for it, according to the official who asked not to be named.
On the third anniversary of Hariri's death, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced the United States intends to double its pledge to the tribunal's first year budget from seven million dollars to 14 million dollars.
Washington suspects Syria of having assassinated anti-Syrian figures like journalists, lawmakers and security officials in a bid to destabilize Lebanon and regain the influence it once had there.
The deadlock in Lebanon over electing a new president has also been a topic of US concern.
"In the last several weeks there have been a number of discussions between American, European and members of the Arab League on Lebanon," the US official said.
David Satterfield, a senior State Department official who deals with Iraq, said in Paris Friday that Syria was "directly responsible" for the political crisis in Lebanon and the accompanying violence.
"The role Syria has to play is very simple: to allow the Lebanese to proceed with free elections. It's not a complicated proposition," he said.
Satterfield also said Damascus had taken action to reduce the number of anti-American insurgents passing into Iraq from Syria, but had done so mainly for its own internal reasons.
