TURKEY, SAUDI PRINCE HAIL COOPERATION
The crown prince of Saudi Arabia visited Turkey on Wednesday for the first time since Saudi agents murdered prominent dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018, driving a deep rift between the two regional powers.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey in the Turkish capital, Ankara, in another step toward mending fences between two Middle Eastern heavyweights whose rivalry has played out across conflicts from Libya and Egypt to the Persian Gulf.
In a joint statement after the talks, the two countries said they were determined to start a “new period of cooperation,” adding that the talks reflected “the depth of the perfect relations” between them.
Erdogan had already moved to recalibrate relations with a visit to Saudi Arabia in April, when he publicly embraced Crown Prince Mohammed and announced what he called a “new period of cooperation” between their countries.
Crippled by soaring inflation at home, Erdogan has been courting regional leaders to bolster the Turkish economy before presidential elections next year. The joint statement after the meeting said the two leaders had discussed easing trade and cooperation in fields including energy and artificial intelligence. Turkey invited Saudi investment funds to invest in Turkish startup companies, it said.
The rapprochement follows similar moves by other countries to rebuild ties with Saudi Arabia, which drew global outrage over the grisly killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and outspoken critic of Saudi Arabia.
The meeting in Turkey is one stop for Crown Prince Mohammed on a tour in which he is meeting leaders in countries across the region, including those in Jordan and Egypt, and seeking to end a period of international isolation.