By AFP
Al-Arabiya, Riyadh, 14 September 2011 – U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns has affirmed his country’s “firm and enduring commitment to Gulf security” during his visit to Saudi Arabia where he met King Abdullah Wednesday, the US consulate said.

Burns “reaffirmed to Saudi leaders the United States’ firm and enduring commitment to Gulf security, including our commitment to countering the threat of Iran’s nuclear program and Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region,” the consulate said in a statement received by AFP.

“He discussed the United States’ and Saudi Arabia’s shared interest in ensuring security and stability across the Middle East,” it added.
Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz said in comments published at the end of August that terrorism remains a threat for the oil-rich Gulf kingdom and accused Iran of targeting it.

But later an Iranian foreign ministry official insisted “the security of Saudi Arabia and Iran are linked.”

Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia rose sharply in March when Saudi troops intervened in Bahrain to help the Gulf kingdom’s Sunni ruling family suppress month-long protests led by its Shiite majority community, triggering angry protests from Tehran.

Burns also “reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East,” said the statement.

Burns’s trip comes after a former Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Turki al-Faisal, on Monday warned the U.S. it ran the risk of becoming “toxic” in the Arab world if it opposed the Palestinians’ statehood bid.

If Washington imposes its veto at the U.N. then “Saudi Arabia would no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has,” he wrote in a commentary in The New York Times.

The Palestinians are preparing to submit a formal request to become the 194th member of the United Nations, despite U.S. and Israeli opposition, when the General Assembly begins its meetings on September 20.

During his two-day visit to the oil-rich kingdom, Burns “exchanged views (with Saudi leaders) on a range of issues, including peaceful transfer of power in Yemen, the need for political and economic support for the transitions underway in Egypt and Libya, and concern about the (Bashar al- ) Assad regime’s unabated violence against the Syrian people,” said the statement.

The Arab world has been rocked a wave of protests that have toppled autocratic rulers in Tunisia and Egypt this year.