Saudi Arabia has nothing to hide over the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001, the country's US ambassador has said.
Prince Bandar bin Sultan was reacting to the publication of a US congressional report on intelligence failures prior to the attacks. The report suggests Saudi Arabia could have provided better co-operation to US authorities before September 11th.
The attacks are a sensitive issue between Saudi Arabia and the United States because 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis.
"The idea that the Saudi government funded, organised or even knew about September 11th is malicious and blatantly false," Prince bin Sultan said. "Saudi Arabia has nothing to hide. We can deal with questions in public, but we cannot respond to blank pages".
He was referring to a section of the report on whether there was any Saudi support for the hijackers that remained classified except for one page.
Congressional sources said there was no conclusion that some people who came in contact with two of the hijackers in San Diego had acted on behalf of the Saudi government, but added that the issue needed to be aggressively investigated.
"Through its investigation, the Joint Inquiry developed information suggesting specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11th hijackers while they were in the United States," the report said.
It also said US government officials had complained before the attacks that Saudi Arabia was uncooperative on issues relating to terrorism and bin Laden.
"A high-level US government officer cited greater Saudi co-operation when asked how the September 11 attacks might have been prevented," the report said.
"In May 2001, the US government became aware that an individual in Saudi Arabia was in contact with a senior al-Qaeda operative and was most likely aware of an upcoming al-Qaeda operation," the report said.