(live-PR.com) - NEW YORK (AP) - Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal on Wednesday expressed concerns about what he said was a «confrontation in the making» between Iran and the West, saying it was the last thing the troubled region needs.
Saber-rattling on the part of the United States and other Western nations in the face of Iran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment has further unnerved the Shiite country's predominantly Sunni neighbors.
Arab countries are already concerned that Iran's growing influence in the Shiite-led Iraqi government will embolden their own Shiite communities, causing even more instability in a region where peace has been the stuff of dreams for decades.
Based on his conversations with U.S. officials and others, al-Faisal said that «what we are seeing is a confrontation in the making.
«The region is a very volatile region, and conflict in that region is a most dangerous thing to conceive,» al-Faisal said, speaking to a small group of reporters on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. The situation has left Saudi Arabia «very anxious,» he said, urging a diplomatic solution.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after enduring insults at a Columbia University forum and derision from U.S. officials, struck a defiant tone in his speech Tuesday before world leaders and other diplomats at the U.N.
Ahmadinejad said the debate over his country's nuclear program was «closed» and it was now a matter for Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog. The U.S. responded Wednesday by moving to cement international support for new U.N. sanctions against Iran.
The U.S. and others maintain that Iran is enriching uranium for weapons. Tehran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Al-Faisal, referencing «rhetoric» from all sides, mentioned French President Nicolas Sarkozy's comments that allowing Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons would be an «unacceptable risk to stability in the region and in the world.
Iran's rhetoric about being able to take care of itself also reflects this slide to confrontation, al-Faisal said.
Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations have a particular interest in the brewing dispute as they neighbor the regional powerhouse. Al-Faisal said the Arabs have voiced their concerns to Iran, and that the country has offered the same reassurances it has repeated on the international stage.
He said Iran knows its interference in some Arab countries is not appreciated and that «Arab countries are going to protect their own interests.
An escalated dispute over the nuclear issue would also be a dangerous development for a region already on edge as Iraq struggles to achieve a measure of stability four years after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled by a U.S.-led coalition.

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has accused Iran of providing arms to militias and other groups that are responsible for U.S. troop deaths in Iraq. The worry remains that Iran will capitalize on the sway it carries with some Iraqi Shiite officials who, under Saddam, were in exile in Iraq's eastern neighbor.
Al-Faisal said there was a risk of the «dismemberment of Iraq.
«That would bring the region into conflict,» he said. «Certainly, interference from outside countries is not something that will help pacify Iraq.
Iraq's prime minister has repeatedly condemned outside interference in his country, but those comments were equally directed at some of his Arab neighbors like Syria, which the U.S. accuses of allowing the infiltration of foreign fighters into the country.
Similarly, Nouri al-Maliki has chastised the U.S. for its detention of several Iranians, saying the arrests of individuals in the country legally undermines Iraq's sovereignty.
The Saudi diplomat described as «dangerous» the Iranian president's comments last month that his country could step in to fill the vacuum created once U.S. forces leave Iraq.
It was an «unwise statement to make because the only people that can fill the void in Iraq are the Iraqi people,» he said.