Atlanta, USA (CNN) – US President Joe Biden is likely to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the first time within the next month at the earliest, several sources told CNN.
This meeting will come after months of frosty diplomatic relations between the two countries and will represent a shift in the position of the US president, who previously described Saudi Arabia as “pariah” and without “social values,” as he put it.
Biden administration officials are in talks with the Saudis about arrangements for a direct meeting that will take place during the US president’s foreign trip next month, according to former and current officials.
Saudi Arabia currently leads the Gulf Cooperation Council, so any meeting between Biden and Mohammed bin Salman may coincide with a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh, the sources said.
“You have to depend on something like that happening, and it’s up to when it happens, not whether it happens,” said a former US official familiar with the talks, while Saudi officials declined to comment.
The meeting between the American and Saudi leaderships is usually routine, but this time it represents a transformation in light of the deterioration of relations, and it is expected to cause some controversy in the American context of President Biden, who was a critic of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and its war in Yemen and the role played by the Saudi government in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
For Biden, returning to better relations with Saudi Arabia reflects at times the uncomfortable choices a leader must make when faced with the oil crisis, human rights, and the network of relationships in the Middle East.
The rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude oil exporter, comes at a time when oil prices continue to rise in America.