Blinken heads to Saudi Arabia
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken travelled to Saudi Arabia yesterday on a mission to steady Washington’s relationship with Riyadh after years of deepening disagreements on issues ranging from Iran and regional security to oil prices.
Mr Blinken is expected to meet with top Saudi officials and possibly the kingdom’s de-facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MbS, during his time in Riyadh, the capital, and the coastal city of Jeddah, in what will be Washington’s second recent high-level visit. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan traveled to Saudi Arabia on May 7.
The top US diplomat’s June 6-8 visit to the world’s largest oil exporter comes days after Riyadh pledged to further cut oil production, a move likely to add tension to a US-Saudi relationship already strained by the kingdom’s human rights record and disputes over America’s Iran policy.
The aims of the trip include regaining sway with Riyadh over oil prices, fending off Chinese and Russian influence in the region, and nurturing hopes for an eventual Saudi-Israeli normalisation.
Speaking at the pro-Israel lobby group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Monday, Mr Blinken said Washington had “a real national security interest” in advocating for normalisation of diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, but cautioned that it will not happen quickly.
US-Saudi ties were off to a rocky start in 2019 when President Joe Biden during his campaign said he would treat Riyadh like “the pariah that they are” if he was elected, and soon after taking office in 2021, released a US intelligence assessment that Crown Prince Mohammed approved the operation to capture or kill journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
A visit by Mr Biden in July 2022 to the kingdom did little to ease tensions, and increasingly, Riyadh has looked to reassert its regional clout, while growing less interested in being aligned with US priorities in the region.
The most recent example was when MbS welcomed Syria’s Bashar al-Assad at an Arab League summit in May, which saw Arab states readmit Syria after a decade of suspension, a move Washington said it neither supported nor encouraged.
The kingdom has been pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into transforming and opening its economy to reduce dependence on crude oil. The reforms have been accompanied by a raft of arrests of critics of MbS, as well as of businessmen, clerics and rights activists.