In the interview, Prince Saud quoted the king as saying: “Why do you want to take a chance on that and harm your country? What is the rush? Why do you have to do it (enrich uranium) this year and not next year or the year after? Or five years from now? What is the real rush in it?”
The king “speaks to everybody frankly,” Saud said, adding that Abdullah told Ahmadinejad: “You’re interfering in Arab affairs,” a reference to Iran’s alleged interference in the affairs of other Middle East countries.
Ahmadinejad listened, then denied any interference. “But we said, ‘Whether you deny it or not, this is creating bad feelings for Iran and we think you should stop,’” Saud told Newsweek.
“Certainly what Iran is doing is interfering in Iraq,” the foreign minister said. “We told them this will not benefit them but will do more harm than good to them. And we talked to them frankly and honestly on this issue and they see the danger that what is happening is going to lead to strife between Shiites and Sunnis.”
Saud also said it was “a catastrophe” for Iran to be holding 15 British sailors and Marines it had captured on March 23. Iran insists the personnel were detained for being in Iranian waters but Britain maintains they were inside Iraqi waters. “This is just not the time for them to have a problem like that looming. We tell them that,” Prince Saud said.
Yesterday, Ahmadinejad said London had mishandled the aftermath of the detention of the sailors. Suggesting the diplomatic standoff was not near a solution, the president underlined Iranian displeasure that Britain had turned to the Security Council and the European Union for support over the detentions.
“After the arrest of these people, the British government, instead of apologizing and expressing regret, over the action taken, started to claim that we are in their debt and shouted in different international councils,” Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by state radio.
“But this is not the legal and logical way for this issue,” he said in a speech to a rally in Khuzestan, a province on the Iraqi border area where the Britons were seized.
