A report by the Saudi Press Agency on Sunday said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressed support for Saudi-authored 2002 Arab plan for peace with Israel during his talks Saturday with Saudi Arabian King Abdullah. Iranian leaders were silent on the matter initially and the source of the Saudi new agency’s information was not clear. Associated Press reported that calls to Iranian officials in Teheran were not answered. Messages left at the Iranian Embassy in Saudi Arabia were not returned. Ahmadinejad himself made no mention of the matter, focusing instead solely on the discussions with Saudi officials on the situation in Iraq and the Palestinian Authority. “We have good relations with Saudi Arabia and it was necessary to discuss current developments in the world of Islam with officials of the country,” he told reporters. Only later in the day did Iran formulate a response to the Saudi report; presidential spokesman Ehsan Jahandideh denied the announcement in a brief statement to the Islamic Republic News Agency ( IRNA ). “During the summit, no discussions were held in this regard,” he said. By Sunday afternoon, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry had announced that several Iranian journalists had been arrested. “They were spreading reports to create divisions among Iran’s ethnic groups,” said the ministry statement quoted by IRNA . “They were getting significant amounts of dollars from abroad,” it said, but did not specify which journalists were in custody, or from which countries they had allegedly received the funds. The meeting between the two oil powers comes in advance of the March 10th Baghdad conference in which Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria will meet with the United States and other Western nations. Saudi King Abdullah personally met Ahmadinejad at the airport as he arrived Saturday for his first official visit to Saudi Arabia, an event that is seen as pivotal for Western as well as Middle Eastern allies. U.S. officials have expressed concern over what they see as a developing proxy war between the two nations being carried out in the Iraqi arena. Saudi Arabia has allegedly been supporting Sunni Muslims in Iraq as they continue to battle Shi’ites, backed by Iran. The U.S. has become increasingly concerned that American GI’s will be caught in the middle. Saudi Arabia, a strong U.S. ally, is watching nuclear developments in the Shi’ite-dominated Islamic Republic not only on behalf of American interests but for its own sake as well. Iran is set to issue a new banknote featuring an atomic symbol this month, according to the Reuters news agency. This follows repeated, failed attempts by the international community to convince the Islamic Republic to halt its uranium enrichment program, which many fear is aimed at building an atomic weapon. Saudi Arabia, with its Sunni majority, is also concerned about Iran’s involvement in civil unrest in Lebanon, another area of instability in the region. Iran, allied with Syria, has continued to provide generous support for terrorist organizations and attacks against Israel which it has vowed to destroy. Iran largely funded and armed the Hizbullah terrorist organization, which kidnapped IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev last summer in the attack that touched off the 2nd Lebanon War. Iran has continued its support of the Lebanese-based terrorist organization, re-arming the group with cooperation and assistance from Syria, its conduit for funding and arms. In addition, some 100 Hamas operatives recently crossed the border from Gaza into Egypt on their way to attend advanced terrorism training camps in Iran. Iranian-backed Hizbullah terrorists are also training and supporting the Islamic Jihad terror organization. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad are based in the Palestinian Authority territories and have carried out numerous deadly suicide bombings against civilians in Israel.
