US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken spoke Tuesday-Wednesday night in Jeddah with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the first day of his visit to Saudi Arabia, and discussed human rights and potential normalization relations between Riyadh and Israel.
The two men had an “open and sincere conversation” and Mr. Blinken raised with Mohammed bin Salman the issue of human rights “generally and regarding specific issues”, a US official said in a statement. cover of anonymity.
The meeting, which began around midnight local time at the royal palace and lasted an hour and 40 minutes, found a number of points “of convergence (…) while recognizing where we have differences”, said he added.
“They discussed a potential normalization of relations with Israel and agreed to continue the dialogue in this regard,” the US official said.
The discussions also focused on the conflict in Sudan where the United States and Saudi Arabia, mediators, fail to enforce several truces between the belligerent generals.
The United States has said it is ready to resume talks in Jeddah with envoys from both sides if they are “serious” in their desire to respect the ceasefire, which would help to deliver humanitarian aid .
Since April 15, the war in Sudan between the army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo has claimed more than 1,800 lives and more than one and a half million displaced persons and refugees.
MM. Blinken and bin Salman reaffirmed their “commitment to stability, security and prosperity across the Middle East and beyond”, including ending the conflict in Yemen, the spokesman said in a statement. State Department Matthew Miller.
The US Secretary of State arrived late Tuesday in Jeddah, on the Red Sea, on the first day of a visit to Saudi Arabia intended to warm relations with the kingdom.
The Saudi ally, to whom Washington has provided a number of weapons, plays a key role in the region and American officials do not hide their desire to maintain strong ties.
After Jeddah, Mr. Blinken goes to Riyadh on Wednesday to participate in a meeting of foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Thursday, still in the Saudi capital, he will co-chair with his Saudi counterpart a meeting of the coalition of countries fighting against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS), created in 2014 and which brings together dozens of countries.
This three-day visit comes against a backdrop of historic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and two enemies of the United States, Iran and Syria, initiating a change in the geopolitical situation in the region.
The Islamic Republic, sworn enemy of the United States and Israel for decades, also reopened its embassy in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, after a break of seven years.
Relations between Washington and Riyadh are complicated as Joe Biden’s administration has accused the wealthy Gulf state of human rights abuses and influencing crude prices.
Human rights activists had called on Tuesday the head of the American diplomacy to raise this question with the Saudi authorities.
Among them is Abdallah Al-Qahtani, a US citizen with no news of his father, Mohammad Al-Qahtani, who served a 10-year prison sentence in Saudi Arabia for founding a civil rights group.
Mr. Blinken “needs to bring up my father’s situation. Is he alive? Is he tortured? We don’t know,” he told a virtual press conference.
As for normalization with Israel, the subject is ultra-sensitive and would constitute a new upheaval in the region after the recent rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, under the aegis of China, but also between Riyadh and Damascus, after years of cold .
In a speech to the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby on Monday in Washington, Blinken said his country has “a genuine national security interest in promoting normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”
In recent years, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco have normalized their relations with Israel, breaking with decades of Arab consensus conditioning the establishment of relations with Israel with the resolution of the Palestinian question.
07/06/2023 07:36:22 – Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
