Obama in Saudi Arabia on fence-mending visit

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – President Barack Obama held talks with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman on Wednesday, April 20, as he began a two-day visit hoping to ease tensions with the historic US ally.

Riyadh and its Sunni Arab Gulf allies have bristled at what they see as Washington’s tilt towards regional rival Iran after Tehran’s landmark nuclear deal with world powers.

Obama, on what is expected to be his last visit to Saudi Arabia as president, is to attend a summit of Gulf leaders on Thursday, April 21, focused on intensifying the fight against the Islamic State group and resolving the wars in Syria in Yemen.

After landing at King Khalid International Airport in the early afternoon, Obama was taken to the Erga Palace for a meeting with the 80-year-old Salman.

The two exchanged brief greetings before heading into bilateral talks.

“I and the Saudi people are very pleased that you Mr President are visiting us,” Salman said.

Obama responded that the United States was “very grateful for your hospitality.”

The president was earlier welcomed at the airport by Prince Faisal bin Abdulaziz, the governor of Riyadh, after walking down a red carpet on the stairs from Air Force One.

Unusually, Saudi state news channel Al-Ekhbaria did not broadcast Obama’s arrival as it did during his visit last year to pay respects after the death of Salman’s predecessor king Abdullah.

Tensions between Riyadh and Washington have increased sharply due to what Saudi Arabia sees as Obama’s disengagement from traditional US allies in the region and opening towards Iran.

‘Alliance-building effort’

Though the visit is being touted as an “alliance-building” effort, “it will just as likely highlight how far Washington and Riyadh have drifted apart in the past 8 years,” Simon Henderson, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote in Foreign Policy magazine.

“For Obama, the key issue in the Middle East is the fight against the Islamic State… For the House of Saud, the issue is Iran.”

Iran’s emergence from international isolation after the nuclear deal has raised deep concerns among Gulf Arab states, who oppose Tehran indirectly in a range of Middle East conflicts.

The weeks ahead of the visit were marked by fiery exchanges from Saudis reacting with outrage to comments by Obama published in the April edition of US magazine The Atlantic.

He said the Saudis need to “share” the Middle East with their Iranian rivals, adding that competition between Riyadh and Tehran has helped to feed proxy wars and chaos in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

Arab News columnist Mohammed Fahad Al-Harthi on Wednesday became the latest Saudi commentator to lament “the United States’ disengagement from assisting in resolving the region’s problems.”

Also clouding the visit is congressional draft legislation that would potentially allow the Saudi government to be sued in US courts over the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed.

Cloud cast by 9/11 bill

Saudi Arabia has reportedly warned it could sell off several hundred billion dollars’ worth of American assets if the bipartisan bill passes.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers in the September 11 attacks were Saudi citizens. No Saudi complicity in the Al-Qaeda attacks has been proven and the kingdom has never been formally implicated.

Obama has stated his opposition to the draft legislation.

Ahead of the visit the White House emphasized the strength of an alliance that has endured more than 70 years.

“There have always been complexities in the US-Saudi relationship. There’s been a core to that relationship in which we cooperate on shared interests like counterterrorism,” said Ben Rhodes, a close adviser to Obama, whose 4th trip to the kingdom comes in the final months of his mandate.

Despite worries in the Gulf, Washington remains a major weapons supplier and has bases in the region.

Gulf leaders are awaiting further military aid along with assistance to counter potential cyberattacks.

Obama will be joined at Thursday’s summit of the 6-nation Gulf Cooperation Council by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Secretary of State John Kerry.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations are part of a US-led coalition that is carrying out air strikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, where the jihadist group has seized swathes of territory.

Riyadh also leads a separate Arab military coalition that for 13 months has supported Yemen’s government in its battle against Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels. – Jerome Cartillier, AFP / Rappler.com