US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed deep concern about the dangerous situation in Bahrain in talks with her United Arab Emirates counterpart, a senior US official said.
"The secretary expressed deep concern about the dangerous situation in Bahrain," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
She was referring to the "entire context" of events there, including the "increasingly provocative" acts by protesters and by supporters of the government as well as the arrival of Gulf forces, he said.
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She also called for restraint by all forces in Bahrain, including Gulf Arab forces, in her conversation with Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the official added.
She said "all of the security forces engaged in Bahrain, including the GCC forces that are out there, (should) exercise care and restraint," the official told reporters.
The GCC is the Gulf Cooperation Council, whose members include the UAE and Saudi Arabia, both of which have sent security forces into Bahrain to deal with pro-democracy protests.
Nahyan told reporters as he went into talks with Clinton that the UAE had sent in 500 police officers into Bahrain along with the Saudi security forces in a bid to "calm" the situation.
More than 1,000 Saudi troops have entered Bahrain, where anti-regime protests have raged for a month, a Saudi official said Monday, as demonstrators took over Manama's central business district.
Bahrain, a tiny, oil-rich ally of the United States hosts the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet and is adjacent to an oil-producing province in Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia where Shiites also complain of unfair leadership.
