Saudi King Ends Cairo Visit, Pledges to Support Egypt’s Return to Arab League

King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, winding up the first visit to Cairo by a Saudi monarch in 15 years, Friday pledged his influential support for Egypt’s reinstatement in the Arab League and endorsed the recent political concessions made by the PLO as a “rare opportunity” to negotiate peace in the Middle East.

The Saudi monarch, in an interview with Egyptian newspaper editors, also confirmed that Riyadh will help finance the reconstruction of an Iraqi nuclear reactor destroyed by Israel in a 1981 air raid.

Both Israeli and U.S. officials have warned that Iraq, like its antagonistic neighbor Iran, is trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability. While that effort was set back by the Israeli air strike against a French-made nuclear reactor near Baghdad nearly eight years ago, Rear Adm. Thomas A. Brooks, director of naval intelligence, testified recently before the House Armed Services Committee in Washington that Iraq was again “actively pursuing” a nuclear capability.

Crash Nuclear Program

Asked Friday about a Washington Post article quoting Israeli sources as saying that Iraq is engaged in a crash program to develop a nuclear warhead, President Bush said in Washington: “I don’t want to give credence to the fact that Iraq is in the process of building nuclear weapons. I cannot confirm that. Anytime you see representations that there will be nuclear proliferation, it has got to concern us.”

King Fahd, in his remarks to the newspaper editors, which were published Friday, denied that the reactor in question was meant to manufacture nuclear weapons, which, he noted, Israel is widely assumed to already possess.

Affirming Saudi Arabia’s “readiness to help rebuild” the Iraqi nuclear plant, Fahd proposed that Israel and Iraq both agree to inspections by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency to “determine which (reactor) is for military uses: the one in Israel or the (Iraqi) one. . . . “

The Saudi monarch was referring to Israel’s top-secret nuclear facility at Dimona, which successive Israeli governments have refused to allow the IAEA to inspect.

Flurry of Interest

While Fahd’s remarks about Iraq’s postwar nuclear development plans provoked a flurry of interest among diplomats and other observers here, it was his strong and seemingly unequivocal endorsement of Egypt’s readmission into the 22-member Arab League that was, from the Egyptian point of view, the most important outcome of his long-anticipated visit.

“Egypt’s presence within the Arab group is indispensable . . . to effective joint Arab action,” Fahd said in a joint communique issued with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the end of his five-day visit.

The Arab League suspended Egypt’s membership 10 years ago after Mubarak’s predecessor, the late President Anwar Sadat, signed a separate peace treaty with Israel. Although most Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, resumed diplomatic relations with Cairo more than a year ago, Egypt’s formal return to the Arab fold has been stymied by opposition from Syria, which the normally skittish Saudis have been reluctant to antagonize.

In the complex currents of inter-Arab politics, however, several recent shifts have emerged to prod the Saudis into taking a bolder stand on this issue.

The most significant of these, Egyptian and other Arab analysts said, was an agreement last February among Iraq, Egypt, Jordan and Yemen to form the Arab Cooperation Council, a loose economic confederation.

While the economic significance of this grouping is doubtful, given the near-bankrupt state of its members’ economies, its political point was not lost on the Saudis, whose regional influence could be eclipsed by the emergence of any post-Persian Gulf War alliance between Iraq and Egypt, the two largest Arab military powers in the Middle East.

Egypt and Iraq have been pressing the Saudis for more economic assistance, and the fact that Fahd’s decision to visit both countries--he stopped off in Iraq before coming to Egypt--followed the Arab Cooperation Council’s formation was not mere coincidence, a senior Egyptian official admitted privately.

“The Saudis decided to come when they saw that Egypt’s weight was being siphoned off toward Iraq and Jordan,” this official said somewhat gleefully.

The joint Egyptian-Saudi communique said the two sides had agreed to establish a committee to increase economic “cooperation,” but there was no confirmation of local press reports suggesting that Fahd had ordered Saudi banks to lend Egypt $2 billion to meet a serious shortage of wheat and other essential commodities this year. There was also no indication that Fahd had brought Egypt a quick-fix check of several hundred million dollars, as had been rumored.

However, if Fahd’s visit failed to meet Egyptian expectations on the financial side, it clearly boosted Mubarak’s prestige in several other ways, diplomats and Egyptian officials agreed.

“Fahd in Cairo, more than any other single visit or event, symbolizes Egypt’s return to the Arab fold,” a Western diplomat said.

By throwing his substantial weight behind Egypt’s quest for readmittance into the Arab League, Fahd has virtually assured that Egypt’s suspension will be lifted at the next Arab League summit, diplomats said.

Because it speaks directly to Egyptians’ sense of pride, the gesture of the visit is considered extremely important to Mubarak, who is facing growing discontent at home over inflation, food shortages and other increasingly visible signs of Egypt’s worsening economic crisis. Indeed, the effusive, almost fulsome, fuss that Egypt made over Fahd seemed to be aimed at least as much at boosting Mubarak’s image as Fahd’s, analysts said.

The support the Saudi monarch gave to Egypt’s diplomatic efforts to convene a Middle East peace conference was also seen here as strengthening Mubarak’s hand on the eve of his first visit to Washington since President Bush took office, the analysts added.

Praising Bush as a “far-sighted thinker” who will “spare no effort to solve the Middle East problem,” Fahd told the newspaper editors that Saudi Arabia “fully supports . . . the constructive position” on the peace process that Mubarak will try to persuade Bush to embrace when they meet in Washington on Monday.

This position, the joint communique added, calls for the convening of an international peace conference, under the auspices of the U.N. Security Council, as “the only formula” that can lead to peace in the Middle East.

The communique also endorsed the recent decisions by the Palestine Liberation Organization to renounce terrorism and recognize Israel’s right to exist as a “positive development in the Palestinian position (that) offers a rare opportunity all the parties should seize to reach a just and comprehensive settlement” to the Middle East conflict.

Mubarak held talks last week with King Hussein of Jordan and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat to agree on the tack he will take in Washington. Now, with the added weight of Saudi Arabia’s support, he will go to the White House with the enhanced stature of spokesman for an influential Arab consensus on the peace process, Egyptian officials said.