“Saudi Arabia won’t provide Saddam asylum if he decides to quit,” said Prince Saud.

RIYADH, March 10 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Saudi Arabia will not provide Iraqi President Saddam Hussein asylum if he decides to quit as proposed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said later on Sunday, March 9.

When asked in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper if the Kingdom would provide exile for Saddam, the Saudi minister replied with a definite "No," noting that it was enough for his country to provide asylum to former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

"That's enough for us," Prince Saud told the Saudi-owned paper.

But when asked that he reiterated Riyadh's backing for the UAE initiative calling on Saddam and his regime to quit within two weeks to avert a potential U.S.-led war on Iraq, Prince Saud said the initiative was aimed at protecting Iraq and the entire region from the “evils of military confrontation.”

"The importance of this initiative is that it comes from UAE, and (its President) Sheikh Zayed (bin Sultan) personally. He is known for his national positions which make the initiative one with noble motives.

"His motive is not to harm Iraq. On the contrary, (it is) to protect Iraq from the evils of military confrontation," Saudi Arabia’s top foreign affairs official said.

Prince Saud also warned that a war against Iraq will herald "an era of long conflicts," and urged that "avoiding war is the logical option which will safeguard the interests of all."

He ridiculed reports that Saudi Arabia was concerned that a democratic change in Iraq would threaten the stability of the conservative kingdom.

"Frankly, we prefer to be attacked by the Jefferson's democracy missiles rather than facing Scud and other missiles," he said in reference to the third U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the declaration of independence.

Arab leaders dismissed the UAE proposal which was not even discussed at their Sharm El-Sheikh summit last week, though Gulf states later came out in support of the initiative.

In other developments, Prince Saud said U.S. President George W. Bush had sent a letter to Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz promising to return to the Middle East peace process on the basis of "his (Bush's) proposals and the Arab peace plan."

In addition, Prince Saud added that the diplomatic crisis between Libya and Saudi Arabia, sparked by a live TV spat between Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi and Prince Abdullah at the Arab summit, "is over and there is agreement with the Libyan leadership."

Bombs Found In Jeddah “Hoax”

Meanwhile, a Saudi official denied later on Sunday that Saudi bomb disposal experts removed 16 sticks of dynamite set to blow up the upmarket Al-Mihmal shopping centre in the heart of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia's commercial capital.

“It was merely a hoax and no explosives were found,” AFP quoted an interior ministry spokesman as saying.

He said that someone had disguised plastic tubes as sticks of dynamite, noting that an examination of the tubes revealed no explosives and the Saudi police were searching for the author of this "hoax."

A spokesman for the centre said Sunday they were informed by police that the objects found "did not appear to contain any explosive material and looked more like a false alarm."

"The material was found wrapped in plastic bags which looked like dynamite sticks. The whole process took about 90 minutes before things returned to normal," the spokesman told AFP.

Asharq al-Awsat reported earlier on Sunday that dynamite was laid at three emergency exits of the famous trade centre and wired to timers due to go off at 9:00 am (0600 GMT) Saturday, March 8.

All seven floors of the centre and an adjacent nine-storey office block were evacuated after the explosives were discovered an hour earlier by a security employee on his rounds.

Investigators were checking security cameras and questioning all employees of the centre in the Red Sea port city, but no arrests had been made or lines of inquiry disclosed.

Security sources told Asharq al-Awsat that "amateurs" appeared to have laid the dynamite.

The centre, which has 115 shops and a tower housing a bank, resumed normal operation on Saturday and opened as usual on Sunday.

The spokesman said "security has been slightly beefed up" at the centre, which is covered by a private security firm.

The Al-Mihmal centre, located on King Abdul Aziz road, the busiest street in the city, is one of the most luxurious in Jeddah and one of the usual stop-offs for VIP visitors guided by government officials.

The last high profile guest was Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and ex-U.S. president Ronald Reagan was the first.