U.S. Hails Saudi as Major Arab Player

Nov. 4, 2013 10:47 a.m. ET

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, spoke during a joint press conference with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal Monday in Riyadh. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

RIYADH—Secretary of State John Kerry huddled with Saudi Arabia’s king and praised the country as a “senior player” in the Middle East during a visit Monday aimed at closing a rare and angry public rift with a strategic ally over U.S. policies in the region.

The Foreign Bureau

Secretary of State John Kerry made a stop in Saudi Arabia on Monday to visit with leaders there who have been unhappy with the U.S.’s approach to Iran and Syria. Via The Foreign Bureau, WSJ’s global news update. (Photo: Getty)

Mr. Kerry’s trip to Riyadh was the first by a top administration official since Saudi Arabia abruptly renounced a seat on the U.N. Security Council last month in what it said was a protest against international inaction on the Syrian and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.
“The Saudis are really the sort of senior player, if you will, within the Arab world,” Mr. Kerry told U.S. Embassy staff in Riyadh, adding that Egypt’s internal turmoil has reduced that country’s influence.
“And the Saudis have an ability to be able to influence a lot of the things that we care about,” he added.
Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, in a news conference with Mr. Kerry, called Saudi Arabia and the U.S. “historical friends,” even as both men reiterated some of their differences on Syria.
And with true friends, “it’s only natural that our policies and views might see agreements in some areas and disagreement in others,” the Saudi foreign minister told reporters.
And in a country where officials still praise the cultural savvy of former President George W. Bush for clasping the hand of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud as the two talked in a 2005 meeting in Crawford, Texas, photos showed the king and Kerry sitting knee-to-knee to talk, rather than being stiffly arrayed across a palace reception room as usual.
Saudi officials expressed outrage last month after President Barack Obama called off what had been a buildup to a U.S.-led military strike on Syrian President Basher al-Assad’s regime over its use of chemical weapons.
Saudis expressed shock again when President Obama responded to Iranian overtures with a cordial phone call to new Iranian President Hasan Rouhani. Saudi Arabia regards Iran as a dangerous regional rival, and views Syria — where Iranian-backed Hezbollah militiamen are fighting on the regime’s side — as a battleground over Iran’s perceived ambitions for regional influence.
Two days after Saudi Arabia’s surprise renouncing of the Security Council seat, Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, a veteran diplomat and intelligence chief who leads his country’s support to rebels in Syria, summoned European diplomats to declare that his country would wind down coordination with the U.S. to aid the armed Syrian opposition.
Saudi security experts, however, said it would be difficult for the kingdom to break its close alliance with the U.S. even if it wanted to.
Gulf states depend on Washington to protect the region’s vast oil reserves, and the Saudi military and its weapons are deeply integrated with those of the U.S.
Mr. Kerry, in his remarks to the embassy staff, emphasized that the U.S. shared Saudi Arabia’s determination that Iran not use its nuclear program to develop a bomb.
At the news conference later, Mr. Faisal lamented that the international focus on Syria’s use of chemical weapons in that conflict “has failed to put an end to one of the largest humanitarian disasters of our time, without specifying the U.S. role in narrowing that focus.
In relations between Saudi Arabia and the U.S., Mr. Faisal said, there was “no room for emotion or outrage.”
Write to Ellen Knickmeyer at ellen.knickmeyer@dowjones.com

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