US’ Blinken visits Saudi Arabia amid strained ties, with hopes of normalising Saudi-Israel relations

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (right) welcomed by US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Michael Ratney and a Saudi official upon his arrival in Jeddah on June 6. PHOTO: REUTERS

JEDDAH – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had an “open, candid” conversation with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the early hours of Wednesday about a wide range of bilateral issues, according to a US official.

Mr Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday on a mission to steady Washington’s relationship with Riyadh after years of deepening disagreements on issues ranging from Iran to regional security to oil prices.

Washington has struggled to steady the relationship with Riyadh, where the de facto ruler, Prince Mohammed, has dominated the decision-making, and as the traditional oil-for-security alliance crumbled under the emergence of the United States as a major oil producer.

The top US diplomat’s visit – which ends on Thursday – 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 US’ Iran policy.

Mr Blinken and Prince Mohammed met for an hour and 40 minutes, a US official said, covering topics that included Israel, the conflict in Yemen, unrest in Sudan, as well as human rights.

“There was a good degree of convergence on potential initiatives where we share the same interests, while also recognising where we have differences,” the official said. 

A good part of the discussion was expected to be dominated by the possible normalisation of ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel, even though officials had played down the likelihood of any immediate or major progress on the issue. 

“They discussed the potential for normalisation of relations with Israel and agreed to continued dialogue on the issue,” the US official said, without providing further details. 

Saudi Arabia, a Middle East powerhouse and home to Islam’s two holiest shrines, gave its blessing to Gulf neighbours United Arab Emirates and Bahrain establishing relations with Israel in 2020 under the previous US administration of Donald Trump. 

Riyadh has not followed suit, saying Palestinian statehood goals should be addressed first.

In April, Saudi Arabia restored ties with Iran, a regional rival and Israel’s arch-foe.

Developing a civilian nuclear programme is among Riyadh’s conditions for normalising ties with Israel, a source familiar with the discussions said.

However, US officials have said in the past they would share nuclear power technology only if the agreement prevents enrichment of uranium or reprocessing of plutonium made in reactors – two routes to making nuclear weapons.

Heading off China

Riyadh has also leveraged its growing relationship with China as Washington pushed back against some of its demands, including lifting restrictions on arms sales and help with sensitive high-tech industries.

Two days after Mr Blinken’s visit, Riyadh will host a major Arab-Chinese investment conference.

Mr Jonathan Fulton, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said China would help the Saudis in sectors where the US would not, but Riyadh’s relationship with Beijing did not have the same depth as ties with Washington.

“At this point, I’d still characterise the US-Saudi relationship as strategic and the China-Saudi relationship as transactional,” he said.

Hours before departing for Saudi Arabia, at a speech in Washington, Mr Blinken said the US had a “real national security interest” in advocating for normalising Saudi-Israeli ties but cautioned about the time frame. “We have no illusions that this can be done quickly or easily,” he said.

Prince Mohammed and Mr Blinken also discussed Yemen and potential ways to resolve remaining issues there, while Mr Blinken thanked him for Saudi Arabia’s role in pushing for a ceasefire in Sudan and helping evacuate US citizens.

Mr Blinken also raised human rights issues with him, the US official said, both on a broad level and relating to specific cases, although he did not say which cases.

Travel ban

US-Saudi ties were off to a rocky start in 2019 when Mr Joe Biden during his presidential 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 Prince Mohammed approved the operation to capture or kill journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

A visit by President 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 the Crown Prince gave a warm embrace to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in May, at an Arab League summit that saw Arab states re-admit Syria to the league after a decade of suspension – a move that 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 Prince Mohammed, and of businessmen, clerics and rights activists.

US citizens and residents with family members detained in Saudi Arabia called on Mr Blinken in a letter on Tuesday to press Saudi officials for the immediate release of their relatives. The list of those detained included prominent cleric Salman al-Odah, children of former spy chief Saad al-Jabri, human rights defender Mohammed al-Qahtani and aid worker Abdulrahman al-Sadhan.

The kingdom had released detained US citizens from its prisons, but some remain under a travel ban.

US officials briefing reporters on the trip last week said there was an “ongoing conversation regarding the promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms” with Saudi Arabia, but they declined to say if Mr Blinken would seek any guarantees from the Saudis on the issue. REUTERS

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