WASHINGTON, October 8 (RIA Novosti) - Vice President of the United States Joe Biden apologized to Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Saud Faisal for claiming that the Arab country had supported extremists in Syria, Biden's office said in a statement.
"Vice President Biden spoke today with Saudi Arabia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Saud al-Faisal. The vice president thanked the foreign minister for Saudi Arabia's strong support in the shared fight against ISIL [the Islamic State, IS] and he clarified his recent remarks regarding the early stages of the conflict in Syria. The two agreed that the issue was closed," Tuesday's statement read.
On October 2, Biden in a speech at Harvard University alleged that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates had "poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone, who would fight against [Syrian President Bashar] Assad," which included extremist elements and jihadists. Saying that America's "biggest problem is our allies," he claimed that Turkey had been allowing foreign fighters to cross its borders.
The Vice President has already apologized for his remarks before the leaders of Turkey and the UAE over the weekend.
The IS Sunni extremist group has become active in Syria in 2012 and launched offensive on Iraq two years later. In June 2014, the IS proclaimed a caliphate on the vast areas it had seized across Iraq and Syria. The United States and its allies have been carrying out airstrikes against IS targets in Iraq since August. In September, the US-led coalition, which includes its Arab allies, started conducting attacks against the IS in Syria.
