Friday, March 29, 2024

Biden snubbed in Jeddah: Minors greet him at airport

The Saudis held a subdued welcome for the US President Joe Biden at the airport in Jeddah, with none of the ceremony that accompanied his stop this week in Israel. Biden was greeted by Mecca’s governor, Prince Khalid bin Faisal, and the Saudi ambassador to the US.

Later, Biden held talks with Saudi King Salman at the royal palace in Jeddah and then the US president and his team had a working session with crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and Saudi ministers.

The US is eager to see Saudi Arabia and its Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) partners pump more oil to help bring down the high cost of gasoline and ease the highest US inflation rate in 40 years.

Biden will meet with a broader set of Arab leaders at a meeting in Jeddah on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the US president also enumerated a list of agreements that he said US and Saudi officials formalised at Friday’s meetings, describing them as “significant business”.

He listed deals to allow Israeli flights into Saudi airspace and to transfer two Red Sea islands from Egyptian to Saudi sovereignty, as well as infrastructure and clean energy projects. 

“Thanks to months of steady diplomacy between my administration and Saudi Arabia, it is finally a reality,” Biden had said in an earlier statement about the airspace agreement.

That deal follows years of de facto rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Two years ago, Riyadh did not protest when the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain moved to normalise relations with Israel as part of a series of US-brokered deals known as the Abraham Accords. 

The Saudi ambassador to Washington said US-Saudi efforts to ensure peace and security should focus on enhancing cooperation and “reinforcing a rules-based system” to confront the “vision of chaos promoted by Iran”.

During his visit to Israel, Biden and caretaker Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid signed a joint pledge to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Tehran, which slammed the US-Israeli declaration, denies seeking such weapons.

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