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| Iraq |
| Iraq minister renews attack on Saudi Arabia |
| 2005-10-04 |
| Iraq's Interior Minister directed a fresh attack on Saudi Arabia in an interview aired on Tuesday, targeting the kingdom for its treatment of women and Shi'ites just days after insulting a royal as a "bedouin on a camel". "(They should) create a democratic system and give freedoms, and not grant rights in just dribs and drabs, saying that maybe a woman can drive a car but she can only work within limits in the workplace," Bayan Jabor told Al Jazeera television. "We call for democracy and freedom in all the Arab nation," the outspoken Shi'ite minister said, accusing Riyadh of treating its Shi'ite minority as second class citizens. The comments were bound to further rattle Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, which has undertaken limited reforms of its absolute monarchy after U.S. calls for democracy and women's rights. Iraq's foreign minister was forced to apologise to Saudi Arabia over the weekend after Jabor referred to Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal as "some bedouin riding a camel" and attacked the kingdom as a dictatorship of one family. He was responding to comments made by Faisal during a trip to the United States last month, warning of the influence of non-Arab, Shi'ite Iran in Iraq and a slide into civil war between Sunnis and Shi'ites in the Arab country. Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbours are concerned over losing Baghdad to Iran after the 2003 U.S.-led war that ousted former president Saddam Hussein paving the way for majority Shi'ite Arabs to power in elections held this year. Iran on Tuesday shrugged off Saudi accusations that it was interfering in Iraq. "The collective wish of countries in the region is for a solution in Iraq. We support these activities and efforts by Iraq's neighbours in this regard," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, speaking through a translator, told reporters in Kuwait. Shi'ites are believed to make up around 10 percent of Saudi Arabia's native population of 16 million and complain of being marginalised by a government allied to radical Sunni scholars who consider Shi'ism a heresy. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Jabor repeated his earlier comments, saying: "We were surprised by this unjustified attack ... which they made instead of acting to solve the problem of the Shi'ites in Saudi Arabia who are considered second class citizens". He also referred to Saudi Arabia's small Ismaili Shi'ite community as receiving "fourth class" treatment. Most of Saudi Arabia's Shi'ites lives in the oil-rich Eastern Province, close to Iraq. |
| Posted by:ed |