Blinken in Riyadh on the second day of his visit to Saudi Arabia

June 7, 2023

US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken arrived in Riyadh on Wednesday, the second day of his visit to Saudi Arabia, after personally discussing the delicate subject of human rights with the Crown Prince amid shifting alliances in the region. .

The meeting with Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, took place in the middle of the night at the royal palace in Jeddah, on the Red Sea.

Highly anticipated, it allowed for an “open and sincere conversation” on bilateral and regional issues, according to an American official.

Mr. Blinken was able to address the issue of human rights in particular “in a general way and concerning specific problems”, he added on condition of anonymity, without giving further details.

Human rights are one of the major points of contention between Washington and the Saudi kingdom, but pragmatic American officials consider that they must continue to forge strong ties with their ally, whose role on the international scene is increasingly more striking.

Washington particularly welcomes the role played by Riyadh in the evacuation of hundreds of foreign diplomats from Sudan, at war since April 15, as well as in trying to achieve a lasting peace in Yemen.

In the morning, Mr. Blinken met in Jeddah with those involved in helping the evacuees to thank them, before leaving for the Saudi capital.

He must participate in a meeting of foreign ministers of the member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), whose general secretariat is in Riyadh.

“We are facing a number of accumulated crises in the region, and this meeting should be an opportunity (…) to define how the United States can play a positive role there in partnership with the Council,” said Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid al-Ansari on Tuesday.

On Thursday, still in the Saudi capital, Mr. Blinken will co-chair with his Saudi counterpart, Faisal ben Farhane, 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.

The two men are also expected to meet in private.

The US Secretary of State’s visit to the kingdom, nearly a year after President Joe Biden’s mixed success, comes at a key moment in the region with a changing game of alliances, including the historic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and two enemies of the United States, Iran and Syria.

Coincidence of the calendar? The Islamic Republic reopened its embassy in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, after a break of seven years, around the time the head of American diplomacy set foot on Saudi soil.

And Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was in Riyadh about three weeks ago for his reconciliation with the Arab League.

If Washington said it was opposed to this reinstatement, American officials could only take note of it.

The other major problem is the hope that the United States cherish of a normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, still unthinkable a few years ago and which would constitute a new upheaval in the region.

The US Secretary of State brought up the subject during his meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince and both agreed to “continue the dialogue” in this regard, the US official said.

The day before he left for the kingdom, Mr. Blinken said in a speech to the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC in Washington that his country had “a real 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 on the resolution of the Palestinian question.