Saudi Arabia has dismissed a media report that the kingdom has agreed to allowUS troops and planes based on its soil to take part in any war on neighbouring Iraq.
Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters in the Red Sea city of Jeddah that the Prince Sultan airbase - home to most of the 5,000 U.S. troops based in the kingdom - would continue only to enforce a "no-fly" zone over southern Iraq, its function since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
The United States and Britain have massed troops and arms in the Gulf region ahead of a possible war, which is likely to be launched from Saudi Arabia's Gulf neighbours Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain.
Prince Saud also said the kingdom could reconsider the US military presence on its territory once "circumstances change" but did not elaborate.
"The Prince Sultan airbase, it was set up to serve the purpose of the no-fly zone," he said, referring to the US and British patrolled swathes of Iraqi airspace created to protect Shi'ite Muslims in the south and Kurds in the north.
"That is what it is doing, and that is what it will continue to do. That is the use of the airbase. Only that," he said.
Saudi Arabia, a key launch pad for the 1991 U.S.-led war that ended Iraq's occupation of Kuwait, has repeatedly said it would not allow its ally Washington to again attack Iraq from its territory without U.N. approval.
The Washington Post had quoted senior US officials and diplomatic sources as saying the kingdom and theUnited States had reached new agreements on expanded use of Saudi military facilities in any war.
The newspaper quoted a source as saying the two countries had an agreement to allow the United States to conduct bombing missions from Saudi Arabia in the days after an initial wave of US. air attacks as long as no public announcement was made.