Dubai - Saudi Arabia said yesterday it was recalling its charge d'affaires from Afghanistan and had asked the Afghan charge d'affaires to leave Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates are the only countries to recognise the Taliban government which controls most of Afghanistan.
"In keeping with national interests, the Foreign Ministry has been notified to withdraw the Saudi charge d'affaires from Afghanistan immediately and to ask the Afghanistan charge d'affaires in Riyadh to leave the kingdom," said a statement from the royal court broadcast by state-run television. The statement gave no reasons for the Saudi action.
The Taliban, whose territory was the target of a US military strike last month, has been harbouring Mr Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi-born Islamic militant leader who has been stripped of his Saudi citizenship. The Taliban say they will not hand Mr Bin Laden over and have vowed to defend him.
In New York, the district attorney in Manhattan indicted a reputed former personal secretary to Mr Bin Laden on Monday, charging that he lied to a grand jury looking into Mr Bin Laden's network.
In Iran air raid sirens sounded yesterday as the country remembered eight years of war amid a tense confrontation with the Taliban. The sirens sounded at the moment yesterday when Iran's neighbour Iraq launched an invasion and attacked Iranian cities after a series of border skirmishes in 1980.
