US President Joe Biden has arrived in Saudi Arabia after visiting the occupied Palestinian territories.
US President Joe Biden meets Saudi Crown Prince upon his arrival in Jeddah on Friday, part of a pivotal visit to discuss energy issues, politics and Gulf-Washington relations, a visit that is a return of his promise made during his election campaign, to turn the kingdom into a pariah state.
Saudi state media released images of the US presidential plane at Jeddah airport, after a two-hour flight from Ben-Gurion airport. No American president has ever flown directly from the occupied Palestinian territories to Saudi Arabia.
Biden was received by Makkah Governor Khaled Al-Faisal and Saudi Ambassador to the United States Rima bint Bandar.
Later, MBS received Biden at the Peace Palace in Jeddah, during a meeting that ends the US presidential boycott of the crown prince, due to the affair of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Video footage, released by state media, showed bin Salman welcoming Biden at one of the entrances to the royal palace in the western coastal city.
While in the coastal city, Biden met with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz, before taking part in a ministerial “working session” chaired by Crown Prince MBS.
It should be noted that after Biden took office in early 2021, his administration released the results of US intelligence investigations, according to which the Saudi crown prince “approved an operation targeting Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi”, whose the horrific murder at his country’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018 sparked global outcry.
Biden promised to make Saudi Arabia an “outcast” less than two years ago, after Khashoggi’s murder.
However, it now appears that Biden is ready to re-engage with a country that Washington has considered a major strategic ally for decades, a major supplier of oil and an avid buyer of weapons.
Washington wants to persuade the world’s largest crude oil exporter to open the door to increased oil production, to reduce high fuel prices, amid war in Ukraine, which threatens Democrats’ chances in the by-elections scheduled for next November.
Source: Translated from AlMayadeen