Arab League Seeks to Damp Down Egypt-Saudi Row

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi indicated on Sunday that he was mediating in a diplomatic spat between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, calling it a "passing phase."

Riyadh on Saturday recalled its ambassador from Cairo after angry protests outside the Saudi embassy in Cairo over an Egyptian human rights lawyer arrested in the Gulf kingdom.

Saudi state news agency SPA said the Cairo embassy as well as the kingdom's consulates in the Mediterranean cities of Alexandria and Suez were closed.

Arabi said in a statement on Sunday he had been in touch with the Saudi and Egyptian foreign ministers, Prince Saud al-Faisal and Mohammed Kamel Amr.

He said he had "confidence in the wisdom of the two nations to get over this passing phase in the historic and strategic special relations between Egypt and Saudi Arabia."

Amr said on Sunday it was important not to focus on a single case when it came to relations between the two Arab nations.

"There are very few problems for Egyptians in Saudi Arabia when you consider their number, which is more than two million," he told parliamentary committees on human rights and Arab affairs.

He also rejected "all offensive comments written on the walls of the Saudi embassy in Cairo."

On Tuesday, hundreds of Egyptians protested outside the embassy demanding the release of rights activist and lawyer Ahmed Mohammed al-Gizawi, who was arrested on arrival at Jeddah airport on April 17.

The Saudi authorities claim he possessed banned drugs.

On Saturday night, Egypt's most powerful political force the Muslim Brotherhood urged Riyadh to "work towards not increasing tensions between Cairo and Riyadh, and to think again about closing its embassy and consulates."

"The people who protested outside the embassy... were merely stating the desire of Egyptians to maintain the dignity of their compatriots in Arab states," the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party said in a statement.