Riyadh denies any obligations to the American forces in fighting Iraq; security council tightens sanctions on Iraq

The UN security council yesterday tightened humanitarian sanctions imposed on Iraq when it approved with a majority of 13 votes and the abstention of Syria and Russia from voting, adding new items to the list of banned commodities for Iraq that require approval by the UN sanctions committee for their import.

This was in conclusion of negotiations which lasted more than one month to reach an agreement on the American sponsored additional list, which Moscow used to oppose but without using the Russian veto against it.

Meantime, Saudi Arabia yesterday denied the American reports which talked about its consent to open its military bases for the American forces in case Iraq is attacked.

The Saudi foreign minister prince Saud al-Faisal doubted what was stated by the New York Times yesterday on that the Kingdom informed the American military officials that it will place its airspace and air bases and the large operations center at their disposal in case of war against Iraq. He said "the heart of the matter is what was said in my statements, rather than what was issued by the paper." The Qatari TV al-Jazeera quoted al-Faisal as saying " even if a UN security council resolution is issued unanimously to attack Iraq, we hope that the chance will be there for the Arab states to find out a political solution for this crisis." The Saudi daily Okaz quoted the Saudi deputy defense minister, Prince Abdul Rahman Bin Abdul Aziz, as saying " this is incorrect and the Kingdom's position is clear from the very beginning towards this matter. We do not have any obligation to any matter concerning Iraq." The saudi official continued "we can not put our airspace and bases at their ( the Americans ) disposal in case a war is launched against Iraq."