No more gestures to Saudis: Iraq’s Maliki [View All]

Source: AFP

BAGHDAD - Saudi-Iraqi relations are at a low ebb and Baghdad has no intention of making goodwill gestures because Riyadh sees them as a sign of weakness, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Thursday.

Ties have been strained since the US-led invasion of 2003 toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and ended 1,400 years of Sunni Arab domination of Shiite-majority Iraq.

Maliki’s Shiite-led government accuses Riyadh of not doing enough to stop its citizens crossing the border and joining the mainly-Sunni insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis in the past six years.

“Iraq has no intention of making new goodwill gestures towards Saudi Arabia because my initiative has been interpreted in Riyadh as a sign of weakness,” Maliki said in a statement posted on the government’s website.

He was referring to an international conference on Iraq at the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh in May 2007, during which Saudi King Abdullah refused to meet Maliki, accusing him of “embodying sectarian divisions.”

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