By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States told Saudi Arabia on Tuesday that military force was not the answer to unrest in Bahrain, a day after the conservative kingdom sent 1,000 soldiers to its fellow Sunni-ruled neighbour.
Washington, a close ally of both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, has been cautious in its response to the deployment. It dispatched a top diplomat to the Gulf Arab state to try to bring about talks between its government and the opposition.
Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman arrived in Bahrain on Monday, U.S. officials said, a day before Bahrain declared martial law to quell weeks of protest by the country's Shi'ite Muslim majority.
Feltman was urging all sides to act responsibly and allow a credible dialogue to take place, the White House said. He was also in Bahrain earlier this month.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she told Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal that the security challenges "cannot be a substitute" for negotiations.
"Our advice to all sides is that they must take steps now to negotiate towards a political resolution," Clinton said in Cairo on Tuesday.
Riyadh sent troops to Bahrain to help restore calm after weeks of protests by Shi'ites in the island kingdom that is home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet. Bahraini Shi'ites -- more than 60 percent of the population -- complain of discrimination at the hands of the Sunni royal family.
Analysts saw the troop movement as a mark of concern that concessions by Bahrain's monarchy could inspire unrest among Saudi Arabia's Shi'ite minority.
On Tuesday, Bahrain declared a three-month state of emergency, handing wholesale power to its security forces, which are dominated by the Sunni elite, stoking tensions in one of the Gulf's most politically volatile nations.
U.S. SEEKS POLITICAL DIALOGUE
President Barack Obama's spokesman, Jay Carney, noted that the foreign troops were invited by Bahrain's government, but said the White House believed there was no military solution to unrest in Bahrain or elsewhere in the region.
"We urge the parties involved here, and the governments involved, to engage in the political dialogue that is necessary to respond to the grievances and desires of the people of Bahrain, and that's a call that we made to other governments in the region as well," Carney said at a daily news briefing.
Close Saudi-U.S. ties anchor stability in the oil-rich Gulf, where Saudi Arabia provides 12 percent of U.S. crude imports and serves as a powerful regional counterweight to Shi'ite-ruled Iran, a defiant U.S. foe.
U.S. officials have voiced concern the unrest could serve Iran. Tehran said on Tuesday the deployment of foreign troops in Bahrain could pitch the region towards a crisis with "dangerous consequences."
John Kerry, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he saw the Saudi intervention as an attempt to create a framework for dialogue and reform.
"They are not looking for violence in the streets," he said. "They would like to encourage the king and others to engage in reforms and a dialogue. What they are trying to do is create a framework in which that can take place."
(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell and Andrew Quinn in Washington and Arshad Mohammed in Cairo; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Peter Cooney)
