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Washington Report, January/February 2006, pages 73-75 Diplomatic Doings Prince Turki Al-Faisal Addresses 59th MEI Conference
AMBASSADOR of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the U.S. Prince Turki Al-Faisal spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on Nov. 8 at the 59th Annual Conference of the Middle East Institute (MEI). Prince Turki, the former Saudi ambassador to the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, was appointed in September to replace Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz al Saud, who served as ambassador for almost 22 years, and is now secretary-general of the Kingdom’s National Security Council. Prince Turki was introduced by Wyche Fowler, chairman of the MEI board of governors, former Democratic senator from Georgia from 1987 to 1993, and former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1996 to 2001. Ambassador Fowler had worked with the prince immediately following the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Dhahran, he noted, “sharing intelligence and working together at the highest level.” “Ladies and gentleman,” Ambassador Fowler stated, “the Kingdom has sent one of its finest.” A graduate of two U.S. institutions, the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey and Georgetown University, Prince Turki is a founding member of the King Faisal Foundation and chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research in Islamic Studies. Previous to his diplomatic service, Prince Turki served as director general of the General Intelligence Directorate (GID) from 1977 to 2001. In his address, titled “The Global Scourge of Terrorism,” Prince Turki argued that terrorism “has defiled our world. Nothing makes it right. Nothing justifies it. It has ripped communities apart. It has eaten away at international and cultural understanding. It has tried to turn friends into enemies.” He emphasized that “we are not engaged in a clash of civilizations; we are instead engaged in a war for civilization. It is a war that pits all peace-loving people, regardless of their culture or faith, against the forces of darkness.” Prince Turki responded to accusations that the current wave of terrorism is supported by Saudi Arabia, stating that is absolutely not true. “We have suffered as a result of terrorism,” he pointed out. “We do not support them. We do not fund them. These terrorists are as much against us as they are against you. Yes,” he acknowledged, “15 of the 19 terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks were Saudi citizens. This fact is a scar on our history. It is a burden that my countrymen will have to live with for the rest of our lives. It is a fact about which we are frequently reminded. But these deviants do not represent Saudis or the Islamic faith. “We no more supported the criminal act committed on Sept. 11 than the people of Italy or the Italian government supported the terrorist activities of the Red Brigade, or the Germans supported the violence of the Bader-Meinhof gang,” the prince continued. “As the 9/11 Commission stated: ‘We have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization. Terrorism is not the exclusive domain of one people. It does not belong to one time or to one place.” The first component of the Kingdom’s fight against terrorism, Prince Turki said, is that “security forces are actively tracking and chasing down any terrorist groups or individuals found to be operating within the Kingdom. We have questioned thousands of people. We have detained over 800 suspects. We have killed or captured more than 100 known terrorists, and in the process stifled over 50 terrorist attacks. And we have paid a steep price. More than 90 of our security forces have lost their lives, and more than 150 have been injured in the line of duty. “Second,” he said, “we are actively cutting off any possible financial support from within the Kingdom. We have frozen the assets of those suspected of supporting terrorism. We have introduced stringent new laws to prevent funds from reaching unknown destinations and terrorist groups directly or indirectly. According to one official from the G-8’s Financial Action Task Force, our new regulations probably go further than any country in the world. We have regulated our charities nationally and internationally and are in the process of setting up a National Commission for Charitable Works Abroad to monitor charitable activity outside the Kingdom. We are taking no chances. Until it is up and running, all Saudi charities are prohibited from sending funds abroad.” The Kingdom’s security officials “currently operate two Joint Task Forces with the U.S. to combat terrorism and terror financing,” Prince Turki noted, adding that “the scourge of terrorism and drug dealing are intertwined.” Interestingly enough, the ambassador said, “Terrorists are using drug dealing to fund their operations, and drug dealers are using terrorism to protect their turf. Take out one, and you diminish the other.” A third aspect of the Kingdom’s fight against terror is “a long-term program to monitor the messages emanating from our mosques and religious schools and to ensure that those messages reflect the true spirit of Islam.” Prince Turki assured attendees that “our senior religious scholars speak out actively against any evil interpretations of Islam, any mixing of politics with religion,” and that to ensure this interpretation, “action has been taken against anyone found to be preaching intolerance. So far, more than 2,000 imams have been dealt with as a result of this new policy.” Prince Turki concluded his address with an analysis of the politics and philosophy behind terrorist attacks. Central to the recruiting ability of groups like al-Qaeda, he said, are “images of destruction, people without homes, soldiers standing at roadblocks, the broken landscape of countries plagued by discontent [that] are beamed across our world…Nothing has done more to damage Western and Islamic relations than the uneven handling of affairs between Israel and the Palestinian people.” An unstable Iraq and Afghanistan also are ugly breeding grounds for terrorism. Prince Turki argued for the continued relevance of King Abdullah’s 2002 “Peace Initiative,” which called for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders in exchange for normalization of relations with the Arab world. This peace agreement would heal “an open wound in the Middle East” which has affected the world for over five decades, he said. The ambassador cited figures published in October by London’s International Institute of Strategic Studies: “30,000 people have died as a result of that conflict since 1978. In the past five years, 4,000 people have died. The tens of thousands injured, made homeless and destitute by this conflict is incalculable.” Regarding Iraq, Prince Turki noted that “we have provided financial and material aid to the Iraqi people, and we are doing what we can to support all efforts to bring about stability between the different factions. Three weeks ago, and at the Kingdom’s initiative, a meeting was convened in Jeddah to seek ways to bring all Iraqi factions together. The secretary-general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, was tasked at that meeting to travel to Iraq and consult with our Iraqi brethren about convening a meeting of all Iraqi factions in Egypt in order to explore the means for arriving at national reconciliation.” During the question-and-answer period, Prince Turki commented on Israel’s recent unilateral disengagement from Gaza. “We want to see it as a first step, not as the final step, in the Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza,” he said. “If anything, it reinforces the need that was put forward in the Abdullah Initiative for the total withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territories.” Responding to inquiries about the Kingdom’s relationship with Iran, Prince Turki said, “We have friendly relations with Iran. We trade with them, we communicate with them. We believe that engaging in dialogue with Iran is better than isolating them. “As far as the condemnation of Iran’s statements on Israel,” he added, “we prefer to deal directly with the Iranians and tell them face to face what we think of their statements, rather than making a public issue of it and gaining some cookies.” According to Ambassador Turki, in the past year the Kingdom has added 3,000 scholarships for students to study in the United States. These students, he explained, can help build vital bridges and improve relations that have been strained since since 9/11. He hopes that number will grow to 15,000 in the next five years, he said. A full transcript of Prince Turki’s comments, as well as additional information about the Middle East Institute, is available at <www.mideasti.org>. —Matt Horton |
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