Riyadh:- Saudi Arabia has reacted angrily to the passage of a US law that allows families of victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to sue the kingdom for its backing of the attackers, warning that the anti-Riyadh measure would lead to “disastrous consequences.”
“I am afraid that this bill will have dire strategic implications” for the United States, Salman al-Ansari, the president of the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee (SAPRAC), told AFP.
“This partnership has helped provide US authorities with accurate intelligence information” that helped stopped attacks, said Ansari.
“Saudi has been stabbed in the back by this unthoughtful and unrealistic bill,” he added.
United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan warned before the vote that the law “will have negative effects on international cooperation in the fight against terrorism.”
Bahrain's Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said on Twitter on Thursday that the law “is an arrow launched by the US Congress at its own country”.
Saudi Arabia was home to 15 of the 19 Al-Qaeda hijackers who carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States which killed nearly 3,000 people.
Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) was initially rebuked by the US president. The US Senate voted to override Barack Obama's veto of a bill allowing 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia, the first such rebuke of his eight-year presidency.
“It will be very difficult for Saudi Arabia to continue in intelligence cooperation when they take such a hostile position,” said Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran Saudi journalist and analyst.
He said Saudi officials are probably debating whether to act now or “wait until the first suit is filed in some small town in America”.
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