JOIN USIn a testy personal telephone call on January 29, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah told US President Barack Obama not to humiliate Mubarak and warned that he would step in to bankroll Egypt if the US withdrew its aid programme, worth USD 1.5 billion annually, The Times newspaper reported.
America's closest ally in the Gulf made clear that the Egyptian President must be allowed to stay on to oversee the transition towards peaceful democracy and then leave with dignity.
"Mubarak and King Abdullah are not just allies, they are close friends, and the King is not about to see his friend cast aside and humiliated," a senior source in the Saudi capital told the newspaper.
Obama has spoken with the 86-year-old Saudi monarch about the current situation in Egypt, where the massive pro-democracy protests against Mubarak entered into its third week with no resolution in sight.
"The President emphasised the importance of taking immediate steps toward an orderly transition that is meaningful, lasting, legitimate, and responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people," the White House said in a statement in Washington.
US has expressed its dissatisfaction over the steps taken by the Egyptian government to meet the demands of the pro-democracy protestors and warned that these protests are going to grow bigger unless the Mubarak regime takes some concrete steps.
"It is clear that the Egyptian government is going to have to take some real concrete steps in order to meet the threshold that the people of Egypt that they represent require from their government," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at his daily news conference in Washington.
"It is clear that the government has not taken the necessary steps that the people of Egypt need to see. That's why more and more people come out to register their grievances. But our notion of when the transition needed to have started hasn’t changed," Gibbs told reporters.
He said what the people of Egypt seek in those grievances "hasn’t changed". "What has to change is the posture of the government in addressing what the people of Egypt need to see," he said.
On Tuesday, US Vice President Joe Biden had called Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman and had said that an orderly transition must begin now, that it must produce without delay immediate and irreversible progress.
"I think it is clear that what the government has thus far put forward has yet to meet a minimum threshold for the people of Egypt. That's why many of you reported the crowds in yesterday’s protests were bigger than even those on Friday," he said.