Bush to meet Saudi prince at Texas ranch on Tuesday

Friday, August 23rd 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ President Bush will meet next week with Saudi Arabian Ambassador Prince Bandar as strains between their two countries complicate the president's plans to oust Iraq leader Saddam Hussein.

``He's coming to talk about a variety of regional issues,'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday. The meeting will take place Tuesday at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.

The ranch visit, a coveted diplomatic plum, is designed to smooth relations with the Saudi government after a series of setbacks, including a recommendation to a Pentagon advisory board that the Arab ally be given an ultimatum to stop supporting terrorism or face retaliation.

A lawsuit by 700 relatives of Sept. 11 victims against Saudi officials also has raised questions in the kingdom about the strength U.S-Saudi ties, said a senior U.S. official.

Though the administration has already distanced itself from the advisory board and is not a party in the lawsuit, Bush wants to reassure Saudis that they are an important U.S. ally despite differences over Iraq, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity.

A telephone message left at the Saudi Embassy in Washington was not immediately returned.

On the Middle East, the administration and Saudi Arabia have been working closely together toward the goal of pressing the Palestinians for reforms that could lead to statehood and the possible resolution of decades of conflict and deadly violence with Israel.

But cooperation between the two nations isn't as smooth on the issue of Iraq, and Bush may renew his case to Bandar for action against Saddam.

Saudi Arabia has made clear to Washington _ publicly and privately _ that the U.S. military will not be allowed to use the kingdom's soil in any way for an attack on Iraq.

Bush said earlier this week, after a meeting with his military advisers, that ousting Saddam was ``in the interests of the world.'' But he indicated that the United States is in no hurry to do so.

In April, Bush met at the Crawford ranch with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, who renewed Arab demands that the United States restrain Israeli military action. He also warned that U.S. tolerance of Israeli military action against Palestinians threatened its ties to the Arab world.

The Saudis also presented an eight-point blueprint for Mideast peace, which urged immediate political talks between Israel and the Palestinians, an end to Israeli settlements in Palestinian-held areas and an armed multinational peacekeeping force.