US gives prominent reception to Saudi prince

Saudi deputy defense minister Prince Khalid bin Salman's visit to Washington this week featured a discussion of global oil markets and an elevated profile of meetings - a sign of an ongoing effort by President Joe Biden's administration to mend US-Saudi relations.

"He is an important adviser across a range of issues, despite his formal title," White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on 20 May, following his meeting with Prince Khalid two days earlier. "We did talk about economics, we did talk about energy."

Washington has been unsuccessfully pushing Riyadh to accelerate the pace of production increases within the Opec+ alliance. Opec sees the oil market as balanced, and Riyadh has joined its peers in Opec+ in ruling out adjustments to production levels on account of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, by saying that the group keeps politics out of its output policy.

Prince Khalid - son to Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz and brother to Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman - had a scheduled meeting on 20 May with deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman, but the State Department said this morning that secretary of state Tony Blinken will join the meeting. Prince Khalid also took part in a strategic joint planning committee meeting tasked with implementing the US pledge to bolster Saudi Arabia's air defense capacity.

US officials earlier this year estimated that Saudi Arabia is capable of intercepting only 90pc of missiles and drones launched from Yemen by the Houthi movement - the civil war in Yemen has resulted in multiple attacks on Saudi Aramco and other civilian facilities.

The perception in Riyadh that Washington has not done enough to protect Saudi Arabia has been a sticking point in relations. Riyadh in March issued an unusual statement disavowing responsibility for global energy security if the Houthi attacks damaged critical energy facilities. The Saudi government subsequently agreed to a ceasefire in Yemen, pledging to lift the blockade of Yemeni ports and allow civilian flights into Sana'a. It also reorganized the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, sidelining Yemen's president Abd Rabbo Mansour.

The Houthis are not formally part of the ceasefire, but they are observing it, the Pentagon says. US and UN diplomats are hoping to extend it beyond 1 June. The White House reaffirmed "President Biden's commitment to help Saudi Arabia defend its territory" and thanked the Saudi leadership for securing a UN-brokered truce in Yemen.

Biden last year promised a reset of relations with Saudi Arabia, stopped all US support for the Saudi involvement in the war in Yemen and downgraded relations with Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the kingdom's de-factor ruler. Washington prevailed on Riyadh to publicly back US outreach to Tehran to restore the Iran nuclear deal, but Saudi and other Mideast Gulf governments are unhappy the US-Iran diplomacy excludes talks to curb Iran's ballistic missile development program - which Tehran refused to discuss.

A deal with Iran remains beyond reach, and the US help with stopping the Houthi attacks runs counter to Biden's pledge to stop the US involvement in the Yemen war.

But the White House has yet to change its policy on dealing with Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Biden said he would only deal directly with King Salman, citing a CIA report that the crown prince allegedly approved a 2018 operation to "capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi" at the country's consulate in Istanbul. The outcry over Khashoggi's death also ended Prince Khalid's brief tenure as the Saudi ambassador in Washington in 2017-18 and he was appointed deputy defense minister in 2019.

Sullivan in his briefing with reporters did not confirm reports of a possible meeting being prepared between Biden and Crown Prince Mohammad.

Biden is expected to visit the Middle East this summer, but so far Israel is the only confirmed stop in his itinerary.

By Haik Gugarats

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