Libya denounces Saudi Arabia press; relations uneffected
Libya-Saudi Arabia, Politics, 8/19/2003

Saif Al-Islam Kaddafi, son of Libya's leader and chairman of the International Charity Foundation Kaddafi, said yesterday that his father did not intend to criticize Saudi Arabia when he talked about the Wahhabi movement as a source of terrorism, in a statement he had made to an American news station two weeks ago.

In a statement broadcast by al-Arabia TV yesterday, Saif Al-Islam added "the problem is not in the Saudi government of leadership. But in the people who exploited the religious and 'Salafi' atmosphere, grew and attacked others including Saudi Arabia."

He stressed that the "leader ( Qathafi) was defending Saudi Arabia." He added that his father "was talking about Saudi Arabia on the ground that the system in it is built on the Koran, Sharia, the Sunni and al-Salafeya and therefore many had exploited this atmosphere and generated what is called now terrorism and the Saudi government itself is one victim of terrorism."

On August 8th, a Saudi spokesman accused the Libyan leader of attempting to "undermine Arab solidarity." He condemned statements made by the Libyan leader to the US ABC news.

Relations between Libya and Saudi Arabia have been witnessing coolness since the verbal row which took place in the recent Arab summit held in March in Cairo between the Libyan leader and the Saudi crown prince concerning the American presence in the Gulf region.

Commenting on this matter Saif Al-Islam said "our relations with Saudi Arabia are solid and strong and the leader (Qathafi) relations with his brothers King Fahd and crown prince Abdullah is personal and old and cannot be changed by the writing of the press." He added that his father was "adopting the viewpoint of the brothers in Saudi Arabia and defending resorting to the American forces following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990."

This comes as the Libyan official news agency reportat the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation statement that said: The Saudi press have for the past two weeks intentionally published articles and items intentionally offending the Libyan people their leadership, and national revolutionary options.

The articles were libellous, insulting, and defaming which lacks any minimal standards of code of conduct, let alone the religious and humanitarian values.

We disdained to respond in order to abort the endeavours of those who try to offend and sow seeds of discord, division and those trying to make up marginal disputes to serve their domestic and external relations.

Indeed, we still disdain to fall in the abysm into which some have fallen, but we resorted to the Saudi laws which prohibit and criminalize what had been published.

We also expected the intervention of the servant of the two holy shrines, King Fahd Ben Abdulaziz to prevent such intentional offending of his Libyan brothers.

However, the slanders published today, about the Jamahiriya's abondonment of its national and patriotic positions in exchange for Lockerbie deal a matter surpassed insults and libel to something much beyond that, particularly so as the matter went as far as alleging the potential of Libyan recognition of the Zionist entity.

Previous Stories:
  Saudi Arabia denounces statements by Qathafi   (8/9/2003)
  Qathafi opposes summoning the Libyan ambassador to Saudi Arabia   (3/6/2003)
  Libya summons its ambassador from Saudi Arabia for consultation   (3/4/2003)

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