TEHRAN, April 4, (AFP): The United States and its allies pressured Gulf Arab states to accuse Iran of interfering in the region, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday and also demanded Saudi forces leave Bahrain.
Gulf Arab states on Sunday expressed concern at “Iranian meddling” in Bahrain and Kuwait, but Ahmadinejad told reporters in Tehran: “This statement was issued under pressure from America and its allies. It does not bear any legal value.”
The hardline Iranian president also said that Saudi-led forces brought into Bahrain amid protests by the Shiite majority in the kingdom should leave.
“It is hideous that troops have been brought in,” Ahmadinejad said. “Take them out. The people have demands so listen to them.”
Foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), in a statement issued after a Sunday meeting in Riyadh, said they were “deeply worried about continuing Iranian meddling.”
The GCC meeting came after the Iranian parliament’s foreign affairs and national security committee said Thursday that “Saudi Arabia should know it’s better not to play with fire in the sensitive region of the Gulf”.

Saudi Arabia led a joint Gulf force which was deployed in Bahrain last month, enabling authorities to quell a month-long, Shiite-led protest demanding democratic reforms in the kingdom.
The Gulf heavyweight on Sunday slammed what it described as an “irresponsible” Iranian statement full of “void allegations and blatant offense against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”.
The statement from neighbouring Iran, which has come out publicly in support of the so-called “Arab Spring” of protests, “fuels sectarianism”, it said.
Ahmadinejad said the Gulf Arab state must “not fall into the trap of the Americans,” and should boost their ties with Tehran instead.
“We have extended the hand of friendship... do not fall into the American trap, all should be alert,” Ahmadinejad said at a news conference broadcast live on state television.
Pointing the finger at Tehran’s regional arch-foe Israel, he said: “Their (the West’s) intention in interfering in the region is to save the Zionist regime.”

He reiterated: “Rest assured, there will soon be a new Middle East without the Zionist regime, without the US presence and their lackeys.”
The GCC — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — accused Shiite Iran of plotting against the security of its Sunni state and of fanning confessional discord.
Tehran was “violating the sovereignty” of members of the regional grouping, it said on Sunday.
Reacting earlier on Monday, Kazem Jalali, spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, said the Gulf states would be better advised to address the grievances of their own peoples as anti-regime protests sweep the Arab world.
“Iran will never interfere in the internal affairs of its neighbours,” he was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.

The GCC countries had “better reconsider their own actions” rather than issuing “emotional statements.”
The Arab monarchies “are aware that their dependency on America and their cowardly behaviour towards the Zionist regime is a form of humiliation that they are imposing on their own people,” Jalali said.
Iran’s foreign ministry on Sunday said the tension between Tehran and its Arab neighbours was the result of a “Western and Zionist conspiracy” aimed at “sowing discord between Islamic countries.”
Acrimony between Iran and the Gulf Arab states was exacerbated by a Kuwait announcement on Thursday that it was expelling an unspecified number of Iranian diplomats for alleged links to a spy ring working for Tehran.
Ahmadinejad denied that Iran had any link to the cell.

“It is clear that (this allegation) has no meaning. What is this spying in Kuwait all about? What does Kuwait have that we spy on it?” Ahmadinejad asked at the news conference.
“If it is (about) its people, well its people are our friends and we are the friend of its people. If it is (about) its government, then we are friends with its government and it is our friend,” he said.
Ahmadinejad also said that Iran was not “interfering” in Syria, as pro-democracy protests sweep the country.
“The government of Syria is our very good friend and it is the resistance’s forefront. So are the people of Syria... the Zionists cannot see the Syrian people and government in peace... the government and the people of Syria can solve their issue through dialogue,” he added.