WASHINGTON: United States President Joe Biden will visit Saudi Arabia this month, reports said on Thursday (Jun 3), a stark reversal for a leader who once called for the kingdom to be made a pariah.
The reported decision comes hours after Saudi Arabia addressed two of Biden’s priorities by agreeing to a production hike in oil and helping to extend a truce in war-battered Yemen.
The New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN, quoting anonymous sources, said that Biden would go ahead with the long-rumoured Saudi stop on an upcoming trip.
CNN said that Biden would meet Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, 36-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was accused by US intelligence of ordering the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that she had no travel to announce, adding only: “The president will look for opportunities to engage with leaders from the Middle East region.”
However, a senior administration official told AFP that if Biden “determines that it’s in the interests of the United States to engage with a foreign leader and that such an engagement can deliver results, then he’ll do so”.
While not confirming the trip, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that there was “no question that important interests are interwoven with Saudi Arabia.”
The trip would reportedly happen around the time Biden travels to a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Spain and Group of Seven (G7) summit in Germany this month.
He is also widely expected to travel to Israel where, as in Saudi Arabia, he is sure to face pointed questions about slow-moving US diplomacy with the two countries’ rival, Iran.
While running for president, Biden called for Saudi leaders to be treated as “the pariah that they are” after the ultraconservative kingdom’s chummy relationship with his predecessor Donald Trump.
Trump had largely shielded Saudi Arabia from consequences after Khashoggi, a US resident who wrote critically about Crown Prince Mohammed in the Washington Post, was lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul where he was strangled and dismembered.
And Trump’s son-in-law and top aide Jared Kushner had developed a close bond with the prince known by his initials “MBS”, reportedly conversing with him over WhatsApp chats.
Shortly after taking office, Biden released the intelligence report that said MBS authorised Khashoggi’s killing and his administration imposed visa restrictions on dozens of Saudis accused of threatening dissidents.
Biden also scaled back support from a Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen amid revulsion over civilian casualties.
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