Saudi Arabia on Monday denounced Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki for accusing the Kingdom of being involved in terrorism, and said the embattled leader was only trying to cover up for his government’s failures and support for terrorist operations in his own country.
The Council of Ministers, chaired by Crown Prince Salman, deputy premier and minister of defense, also backed the resolutions taken by the Council of Arab Interior Ministers to root out terrorism in the region.
Prince Salman, who returned to Riyadh on Sunday after visiting five nations, thanked the leaders of Pakistan, Japan, India, Maldives and China for welcoming him so warmly.
He praised the commitment of the leaders of the five countries to expand cooperation with Saudi Arabia in all areas. He hoped that his visits would contribute to global peace and stability.
Culture and Information Minister Abdul Aziz Khoja said the Cabinet commended Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for supporting an online Hadith program supervised by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh. The program currently consists of 367,000 pages containing 261,942 sayings of the Prophet (peace be upon him). It would expand to 450,000 pages at a later stage.
The Cabinet thanked King Abdullah for supporting the Kingdom’s industrial development and his patronage of the third industries forum in Yanbu. The forum called for further infrastructure integration to establish basic industries. The Cabinet welcomed the recommendations issued by the 14th Conference of Ministers of Higher Education and Scientific Research in the Arab world, hosted by the Kingdom. It stressed the need to develop an Arab strategy for scientific and technological research.
Spelling out the decisions taken by the Cabinet meeting, Khoja said it approved the Statute of the Organization for the Development of Women, which forms part of the mandate of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
The organization aims to highlight the role of Islam in protecting the rights of women. It will set out plans, programs and projects to implement the policies, directives and decisions of the OIC in various areas of women’s development.
The Cabinet reshuffled the coordination committee overseeing care for people with disabilities. It included representatives from the Youth Welfare Presidency, and the Ministries of Education, Municipal and Rural Affairs, Interior, Higher Education, Health, Labor, Civil Service, and Social Affairs.
The Cabinet authorized the Minister of Civil Service to hold talks with his Japanese counterpart to sign a cooperation agreement.
It appointed Hamoud bin Ibrahim Al-Ghareer minister plenipotentiary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Fares bin Mohammed Al-Aida commander of the 38th Regiment at the Ministry of National Guard; Khaled bin Mohammed Al-Batal undersecretary at the Eastern Province governorate; Salah bin Muad Al-Maayouf director general of consultancy at the Institute of Public Administration; and Dhaifullah bin Saleh Al-Thubaiti administrative advisor at the Control and Investigation Bureau.