165. Telegram From the Embassy in Saudi Arabia to the Department of State1
7686. For NEA Atherton. [2½ lines not declassified]. Subject: Yemeni-Saudi Relations. Ref: A) Jidda 7533; B) [less than 1 line not declassified] C) USDAO Sana 151330Z Nov 75.
Summary: We have detected no air of crisis in Saudi-YAR relations here in the Kingdom but a crisis is a virtual certainty if a large scale arms agreement is concluded between the YAR and the Soviet Union. The SAG will react strongly and negatively. Saudi (and thus U.S.) interests in the YAR will suffer but the YAR will be the big loser. The Saudis can be counted on to cut off their very extensive economic subsidies and impede the flow of remittances. Some of their largesse will doubtless be diverted to “alternate power centers” since Hamdi will have discredited himself in Saudi eyes. In the process we suspect he will also have undercut what support now exists within the SAG [Page 555] for progress, centralization and modernization in the YAR. We should continue our efforts with the Saudis to encourage tangible support for Hamdi. The Saudis will have no interest, however, in competing with the Soviets for Hamdi’s affections. In view of the almost certain damage to Saudi-YAR relations and the negative impact on U.S. interests, we believe that we again would be justified in making very strong representations to Hamdi against conclusion of an arms deal with the USSR. End summary.
1. As we have reported (ref A), there has not been any air of crisis in the past several weeks within Saudi Arabia over the state of Saudi-Yemeni relations. On the contrary, things have seemed to be proceeding in an unusually satisfactory direction though at a slower than desired pace. If, however, the information in ref B is true (even though it raises more questions than it answers), we can understand the air of crisis being generated in Sana’a by Hamdi’s inner circle. And if an arms deal of the magnitude suggested is concluded, there will indeed be a crisis in Saudi-Yemeni relations—a crisis of very major proportions.
2. We agree that what is needed before we take any action is more hard information. We have been hampered locally in this by the absence of those most intimately connected with Yemeni affairs—which itself reflects Saudi relaxation in regard to their relations with the YAR. Minister of Defence Prince Sultan is vacationing in Geneva after the Ghashmi visit and his own official visit to France. He is not scheduled back for another ten days or two weeks. Foreign Minister Prince Saud has been in Oman for the last two days. We have left word that the Ambassador wants to meet with him as soon as possible in Jidda, Riyadh or elsewhere. A meeting has now been set for tomorrow, Nov 18. We have had a request in for an appointment with Crown Prince Fahd who has himself been extremely busy traveling. But in the absence of Saud and Sultan, we are reluctant to press for an urgent meeting with Fahd. He would not understand the need for an urgent meeting simply to review the Ghashmi visit, and if we were to tell him of the pressure of Russian arms offers a very negative atmosphere would quickly build up on the Saudi side (See below). [less than 1 line not declassified] Prince Turki bin Faisal whose recent visit to the YAR was the ostensible cause of the crisis in YAR governing circles. At the working level our information gathering attempts have elicited nothing to suggest a budding crisis. On Nov 16, Colonel Dhahiry, the Ministry of Defense Action Officer for the Yemen told our Pol/Mil Officer he believed matters were going well and that the arms assistance program for the YAR is now with the Cabinet. We have gotten nothing from the Foreign Ministry but that doesn’t mean anything.
3. By now the SAG will have received the reports from its military attaché in Sana’a on the high-powered YAR military delegations to [Page 556] Moscow and will be pumping its own extensive sources within the YAR for more information. If what they hear seems to them to indicate that the YAR was hammering out an extensive arms deal with the Soviets at the time Ghashmi was in Riyadh and Hamdi was making reassuring noises to Prince Turki in Sana’a, we think the Saudis may react strongly. Certainly their first reaction will not rpt not be to make a nonciliatory gesture towards Hamdi or to make any dramatic and far-reaching commitments in the military or economic sweepstakes.
4. We will hold off on detailed recommendations for action until we have more facts, but in the meantime believe there are a number of considerations which should be borne in mind. If Hamdi and the YARG turn to the USSR for arms on a very large scale as suggested, Saudi interests in the Yemen (and hence our own) will suffer a serious setback. The big loser, however, will certainly be the YAR. We doubt that the Soviets would be willing to contribute a fraction of the amount in economic assistance that the Saudis have been paying out to the YARG in budget support (i.e. $700 million/year). These funds would certainly stop flowing almost immediately to the central government; we would not be surprised if a very large amount of that money was then diverted to what the Saudis perceived as alternative power centers. The Saudis cannot, over the short run, do without the million or so workers now living in Saudi Arabia but they can quite easily cut back if not cut off the flow of remittances to the YAR. This must exceed $500 million/year and we assume its loss would compound the financial difficulties of the YARG. Hamdi himself, of course, would be discredited in Saudi eyes. Whether his progressive and modernizing ideas would also be discredited is another question but we suspect they would. For lack of a better alternative the Saudis would probably in any case give more support to the YAR’s conservative traditional leaders.
5. We agree that it is important to try and maintain Saudi support for the Hamdi regime, and will continue to press this view on Saudi leaders. This summer we recommended—when it seemed as if President Hamdi might have concluded an arms deal with the USSR—that “the USG would be justified in urging President Hamdi to unmake such decision because of the harmful effect they would have on our security interests in Saudi Arabia and the peninsula, and on Saudi-Yemeni relations.” (Jidda 4832). Perhaps it is again time for such a representation to be made.
6. It would be regrettable if the Hamdi regime considered—because of our sympathy and concern for the YAR’s economic and political development—that we are able to move the Saudis rapidly in the direction the YAR desires. We think of Ghashmi’s adjuration “do your part with the Saudis” (Sana’a 3192). Under the influence of such a belief, Hamdi could overplay his hand and endanger Saudi-Yemeni cooperation and U.S. interests in the YAR.
7. Dept Please Pass Sana’a.
Summary: The Embassy reported on the state of relations between the Yemen Arab Republic and Saudi Arabia, noting rumors of a crisis over the possible sale of Soviet arms to the former.
Source: Ford Library, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for the Middle East and South Asia, Box 30, Saudi Arabia-State Department Telegrams, To SecState-Nodis (8), 9/75–11/75. Secret; Immediate; Nodis; Noforn; Eyes Only-Direct. Telegram 7533 from Jidda, November 11, is in the National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D750395–0077. Reference telegram C was not found. For discussion of the Soviet arms sale to the Yemen Arab Republic, see Documents 220 and 222.
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