Damascus: Syria-Saudi ties are none of U.S.'s business

The Syrian government advised the United States on Thursday against interfering with a visit by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to Damascus, saying that the two countries "know better" how to stabilize the Middle East.

	A sign of Syria's President Bashar Assad on the Syrian side of the border with Israel on April 17, 2010.
	Photo by: Reuters

Abdullah will hold talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad in the Syrian capital before they travel together to Beirut on Friday to try to calm tension over a tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese statesman Rafik Hariri.

U.S. State department official Philip Crowley said on Wednesday that Washington hoped Syria would play a constructive role in the region and would respond to the Saudi monarch's concerns about Iranian "threats" to Middle East stability.

"Obviously, King Abdullah has played a significant leadership role in the region. So his prospective travel to Syria and to Lebanon is consistent with his search for peace,"
Crowley said.

A Syrian foreign ministry statement said the United States "has no right to define our ties with the countries of the region and interfere in the content of the talks the Saudi monarch will have in Damascus".

"Syria and Saudi Arabia... know better than others the interests of the people of the region and how to achieve them without outside interference and they are able to define their policies to achieve peace and stability in the region," the statement said.

Relations between Damascus and Washington improved after President Barack Obama took power last year but major differences persist, including Syria's strong ties with Iran and the two countries' backing for the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

"The Syrian statement seems to express a preference in Damascus not to focus on the Iran issue again during King's Abdullah's visit," a Syrian source said.

Iran was a focus of talks by King Abdullah when he visited Damascus last year, diplomats in the Syrian capital said. The visit helped mend ties between Saudi Arabia and Syria, which had deteriorated after the Hariri assassination.

This month Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly criticized the U.N.-backed tribunal that began work last year but has yet to issue indictments in the Hariri case.

He described the tribunal, which is based in The Hague, as an "Israeli project" after saying he had received word that it planned to indict members of his group over Hariri's killing.

U.N. investigators initially implicated Syrian and Lebanese security agencies. Syria says it had no hand in the Feb. 14 seafront bombing in Beirut that killed Hariri and 22 others.

The assassination provoked an international furor led by the United States, France and Saudi Arabia that prompted Syria to end its 29-year military presence in Lebanon in April 2005 and led to the establishment of the special tribunal.