Saudi prince heads to EU
RIYADH: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman was set to embark on a visit to Greece and France on Tuesday, state media reported, his first Europe trip since 2018.
Prince Mohammed will meet leaders of both France and Greece “to discuss bilateral relations and ways to enhance them in various fields,” the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported, citing a statement from the royal court.
The trip comes less than two weeks ater US President Joe Biden visited the Saudi city of Jeddah for a summit of Arab leaders and met one-on-one with Prince Mohammed, greeting him with a fist bump.
Prince Mohammed’s stay in Europe represents a “highly symbolic move,” said Kristian Ulrichsen, a research fellow at the Baker Institute at Rice University.
“While there has not been any formal coordination of policy in the West since 2018, the fact is that he has not visited any European or North American country since 2018,” Ulrichsen said.
Prince Mohammed has also received a recent boost from Turkish President Erdogan, who visited Saudi Arabia in April, then welcomed Prince Mohammed in Ankara in June.
Recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prince Mohammed spoke about the oil market in a telephone conversation.
Putin and prince mo ham med discussed“in detail the situation on the international oil market. They stressed the importance of reinforcing cooperation in OPEC+,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
The Saudi-led OPEC oil cartel has been cooperating with a number of other oil-exporting nations including Russia for several years to beter control the oil market.
The group, called OPEC+, introduced production cuts during the coronavirus pandemic that helped the oil market to recover from a crash in prices to below zero.
OPEC+ nations have been gradually unwinding those cuts, but the end of COVID-19 restrictions in most countries has seen demand rebound.
With Russia’s military operation in Ukraine also triggering supply worries, oil prices have jumped briefly above $120 per barrel this year.