Saudi Arabia severed relations with Afghanistan's Taliban regime on Tuesday for harbouring "terrorists", increasing Kabul's isolation and winning praise from Washington.
"The Saudi government announces that all relations with the Taliban are cut," said an official statement carried by the official SPA news agency.
The decision had been taken because the Taliban had not responded to "contacts and initiatives undertaken by Saudi Arabia to convince them to stop harbouring and training terrorists."
The Saudi move, close on the heels of the United Arab Emirates' decision Saturday to end relations with the Taliban, further tightens the noose around Afghanistan's Islamist ruling militia which Riyadh helped create, notably by extending substantial financial aid.
However, Kabul's embassy in Riyadh remained open into the afternoon as normal, an AFP correspondent reported.
"We haven't been informed of the break in relations with Saudi Arabia," an embassy employee told AFP, as several Afghans were seen to use consular services.
But on Tuesday night, the Saudi foreign ministry said it had summoned the embassy's second secretary, Mulawi Mutih Allah Khalawi, to inform him of the kingdom's decision to break off diplomatic relations and to asked that the diplomats leave the country in 48 hours,
In Kabul, Taliban spokesman Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Mustassad told Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite television channel that the regime "has still not been officially notified" of the Saudi decision.
"The president praises and is grateful to the Saudi government for taking that wise step," Ari Fleischer, spokesman for US President George W. Bush, told reporters hours after the decision was made public.
Fleischer also thanked the UAE, which broke ties with the Taliban on Saturday, but stopped short of asking Pakistan -- the last nation with diplomatic ties to the Islamic militia -- to end that relationship.
It was the first concrete move by the kingdom to join the campaign against Osama bin Laden, the Afghan-based Saudi-born militant and prime suspect in the September 11 terror attacks in the United States that left nearly 7,000 people dead.
Saudi Arabia, a key Arab ally of Washington, has appeared reluctant to engage fully in the anti-terror campaign in retaliation for the devastating attacks in New York and Washington, presumably directed against Afghanistan for refusing to hand over Bin Laden.
"The Taliban government continues to use its territory to harbour, arm and encourage criminals to carry out criminal operations against innocent people ... which damages Islam and the image of Muslims across the world," the Saudi statement said.
Riyadh "deplored that ... (the Taliban) had made their land a reception, training and recruitment center for a number of lost people of every nationality, particularly Saudis, so that they carry out criminal acts contrary to every religion, and at the same time refuse to turn over these criminals to justice."
But the kingdom's caution over Washington's anticipated retaliation is fueling speculation about its readiness to physically join the military campaign by granting the US additional military facilities.
Saudi Arabia has been "nothing but cooperative," Bush said on Monday.
"There's been no indication, as far as I'm concerned, that the Saudis won't cooperate once they understand exactly our mission."
Bush's remarks were echoed by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has denied a Washington Post report that Riyadh was resisting US requests to use a new air control centre in the kingdom to coordinate retaliation against Afghanistan and possibly Arab states too.
Later on Tuesday, Saudi King Fahd reiterated his country's readiness to cooperate with the United States, first expressed following the September 11 attacks.
"We affirm to you that our country is anxious and ready to line up with the government and the ... people of the United States in the framework of efforts to take on terrorism and the authors of acts of terrorism," Fahd was quoted by SPA as saying.
But the kingdom, home to Islam's holiest sites, has made no secret of its unease at Israel's continuing repression of the Palestinian intifada, which has angered the Saudi public and was described as "state terrorism" by the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Gulf Arab counterparts during a meeting in Jeddah on Sunday.
"The Palestinian issue, which concerns all Arabs and Muslims, is a source of instability in the region," Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz reminded Bush during an overnight telephone conversation, urging him to find a settlement.
"The Palestinian people, who are the victims of all sorts of injustices, deserve international attention of the kind shown by the world after the September 11 attacks," the Saudi daily al-Watan wrote Tuesday, summing up pro-Palestinian sentiment in the oil-rich kingdom.
Riyadh opened relations with the Taliban in May 1997, long with Abu Dhabi and Islamabad, the only three governments to recognise Taliban rule.
But it downgraded ties with Kabul to charge d'affaires level in 1998 in protest at the refusal to hand over bin Laden, who was stripped of his Saudi nationality in 1994.
Since then, the mission has been limited to administrative and consular matters, such as renewing passports for the approximately 200,000 Afghan residents of the kingdom.
(china Daily 09/26/2001)
