A lawmaker said financial considerations and close cooperation in the Middle East are behind US efforts to downplay the Saudi role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
"The US does not like to lose one of its major partners in the region, which also brings it huge economic benefits," Ali Najafi Khoshroudi told ICANA on Monday. "That's why it ignores Saudi crimes even against its own nation."
The lawmaker was referring to the release of the long-classified "28 pages" section of the official US Congress's report on the Sept. 11 attacks on Friday, which describes an array of potential links between some of the attackers and officials in Saudi Arabia, but reveals no complicity by the Saudi government in the events.
The lawmaker said the US refuses to reveal the connection between Saudi rulers and terrorists, because both of them are working with terrorists.
"There is ample evidence in their support for terrorists," he said, stressing that there are coordinated efforts to use terrorism as a tool.
Iran accuses western powers of applying double standards on terrorism and trying to use terrorists to advance their interests.
Whitewashing
Khoshroudi noted that the families of the victims of the attacks will not tolerate the whitewashing of the Saudi role in the 9/11 attacks.
The 28 pages of the report on the 2002 investigation focus on potential Saudi government ties to the 2001 attacks on the United States, in which nearly 3,000 people died.
The report said the alleged links had not been independently verified.
The pages were released after years of urging by families of those killed.
The Obama administration sent a declassified version of the 28 pages, with many lines and sentences blacked out to protect intelligence sources and methods, to Congress on Friday morning and it was released a few hours later.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, commenting on the released report, told a news conference in Washington this week that the report exonerated the kingdom and "the matter is now finished".
Earlier in April, Jubeir had warned the US against passing a bill that could expose Riyadh to litigation over the September 11attacks, threatening Washington with selling off Saudis' US-based assets.
The release of the previously classified pages is unlikely to end the controversy over the role of Saudi Arabia in the attacks. Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi citizens.
