WASHINGTON, Oct 12 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday that women in Saudi Arabia must eventually be allowed to vote but declined to criticize the conservative Muslim kingdom's apparent decision to deny that right in landmark municipal elections next year.
"This is the choice that the Saudi government has to make," Powell said in an interview with the US-funded Arabic-language Al-Hurra television network that broadcasts news and information programming to the Middle East.
"I think women should be allowed," he said. "These things have to come in due course and (we are) still waiting to see whether that is the final official position of the Saudi government."
Powell's comments came after some Saudi authorities ruled out the participation of women in the upcoming polls -- the country's first-ever nationwide ballot -- which are part of a drive to introduce limited reforms in the country.
Regulations for the election do not explicitly exclude women although they use the Arabic masculine form in referring to citizens eligible to vote, a common practice in the legal texts of the kingdom which is ruled under a strict version of Islamic law.
Three Saudi women have said they intend to stand for office but Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz said Sunday that he didn't think "the participation of women is on the cards."
On Tuesday, the head of Saudi Arabia's election committee, Prince Mansur bin Muteb bin Abdul Aziz, said he thought women might be allowed to vote in the future if studies find their participation to be "useful."
Saudi Arabia has come under intense pressure to enact democratic reforms but insists, along with other Arab nations, that they be tailored to indigenous specifications and not necessarily follow a Western pattern.
Powell, who has been at the front of US President George W. Bush's campaign to promote such reforms, said he understood the Saudi need to pace liberalization but stressed that women around the globe had to be able to play their "full role" in society.
"It's novel that the Saudis are having elections in the first place, and they'll have to decide at what pace they can move," he said. "I think ultimately, in every society in the world, women have to be able to play their full role."