Untitled - orsam

7. ARABIAN PENINSULA AND THE GULF OF BASRA / ARAP YARIMADASI VE BASRA
KÖRFEZİ
Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its
nuclear program, according to US documents leaked by WikiLeaks and published Sunday
by daily newspapers.
According to a leaked US cable, published by The New York Times, the king made the call
during an April 2008 meeting with US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and US General
David Petraeus.
"He told you to 'cut off the head of the snake'," Saudi Arabia's ambassador to
Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, told the US embassy in Riyadh two days after the high-level
talks, according to the State Department memo.
"The king, foreign minister, Prince Muqrin, and Prince Nayif all agreed that the Kingdom
needs to cooperate with the US on resisting and rolling back Iranian influence and
subversion in Iraq," the memo said.
"The King was particularly adamant on this point, and it was echoed by the senior princes
as well. Jubeir recalled the king's frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so
put an end to its nuclear weapons program."
But the memo goes on to say other Saudi officials were more cautious about the need
for military action, with Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal and intelligence chief
Prince Muqrin bin Abd al-Aziz pushing for sanctions.
"The Foreign Minister, on the other hand, called instead for much more severe US and
international sanctions on Iran, including a travel ban and further restrictions on bank
lending," the memo said.
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