Manama: Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister on Thursday said that the recent visit by a delegation from Hamas to Makkah was for religious purposes and did not have any political aspect.
“There was no [official] visit by Hamas to Saudi Arabia,” Adel Al Jubair said. “Members of Hamas, including Khalid Meshaal, visited Makkah to perform Umrah, and this is a right for all Muslims and nobody can deny it. During their presence in Makkah, they performed Eid prayers and offered their best wishes to the King on Eid. There were no meetings. They just exercised their rights like all Muslims,” he said at a joint press conference with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah.
Last week’s visit by Hamas political chief Meshaal and other leaders of the movement, the first in three years, seemed to signal a significant warming of relations with Saudi Arabia.
Hamas said in a statement last weekend that the delegation, including Meshaal’s deputy Mussa Abu Marzuk, also met Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Nayef and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the king’s son and defence minister.
However, for many Iranians it was new snub by Hamas, the group that runs Gaza Strip and had close relations with Tehran.
Ties deteriorated however after Hamas in January 2012 refused to side with Iran’s Syrian ally Bashar Assad and supported Saudi-led military operations against Al Houthi strongholds in Yemen to restore the government of exiled President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
Several Iranian lawmakers upset by the high-profile visit to Saudi Arabia said that Hamas had made a mistake while an article by Saman Saberian in Ghanoun, “Hamas: Bank account in Tehran, stronghold in Riyadh”, was also highly critical of the trip.
Al Jubair at the press conference said some of the news related to the visit were “inaccurate and exaggerated.”
“The position of Saudi Arabia vis-a-vis Hamas has not changed. The position of Saudi Arabia regarding supporting the Palestinian Authority has not changed. The stance of the Saudi kingdom regarding supporting Egypt and its efforts to maintain security and stability inside Egypt has not changed,” he said.
“I believe the only thing that has changed is that some analysts are trying to concoct something that did not happen or exaggerate an issue that is not so important,” he said.
Ties between Hamas and Riyadh deteriorated after the kingdom supported the Egyptian army’s 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohammad Mursi and its crackdown on his Muslim Brotherhood.
The exiled Meshaal has been based in Doha since he abandoned Damascus in 2012 after the group sided with Syrian rebels against Iranian-backed President Bashar Al Assad.
The minister said Saudi Arabia and Egypt had convergent views on the challenges in the Arab region and that the meeting with Shoukry discussed the situation in Yemen and Egypt’s support to legitimacy in the war-hit country.
Al Jubair said Saudi Arabia had no doubts about Egypt’s positions and stressed Egypt was a fundamental component of the alliance supporting the legitimacy of Hadi’s government in Yemen and that it was committed to supporting the alliance both politically and militarily.
The minister who was appointed in April said the Saudi ambassador’s return to Yemen was correlated with the security situation in the country.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt agreed on the significance of reaching a solution to the developments in Syria based on Geneva 1, he said.
However, he insisted that the solution must include the departure of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.
Al Jubair said Saudi Arabia welcomed any agreement that would guarantee the inability of Iran to possess nuclear weapons, explaining that Tehran supports terrorism and instability in the region.
The Saudi minister called upon Iran to benefit from the nuclear agreement to improve the conditions of its people.
- with inputs from AFP
