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Saudi Arabia hits back over Syrian official's comments on its role in Mideast
The Associated Press
Published: August 16, 2007

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia lashed out at Syria on Thursday with a rare tirade reflecting deteriorated relations between the two Mideast nations.

An unidentified kingdom official in a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency criticized the remarks earlier in the week by Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa, who had belittled the Saudi role in the Middle East.

At a press conference in the Syrian capital on Tuesday, al-Sharaa had said that the Saudi nation — the Mideast's key Sunni power player — has become semi-paralyzed.

Al-Sharaa also blamed the kingdom for the ultimate failure of the agreement between rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas that was signed in Mecca earlier this year.

The statement on SPA, which is considered a kingdom mouthpiece, said that Riyadh was "very surprised over the repulsive remarks by ... al-Sharaa that included a lot of lies aimed at harming the kingdom."

It added that the Syrian official's comments show irreverence to the "traditions and norms that rule relations between sisterly Arab nations."

Relations between the kingdom and Damascus have grown increasingly worse, with the two deeply divided over Syria's ties to Iran and the Shiite Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon.

The relations in particular soured after Syrian President Bashar Assad, in a speech following last summer's Israel-Hezbollah war, described leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan as half-men for their failure to act to stop the violence.

Saudi Arabia was markedly absent from a key regional meeting earlier this month of a newly created security committee on Iraq that took place in Damascus.

Saudi Arabia hits back over Syrian official's comments on its role in Mideast (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/16/africa/ME-GEN-Saudi-Syria.php)