US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Saudi Arabia to strengthen ties, discussed human rights issues with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and addressed conflicts in Sudan and Yemen, combatting the Islamic State group, and navigating the evolving Middle East alliances.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed human rights with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Tuesday during a trip to boost ties with the long-time ally, which has forged closer relations with Washington’s rivals.
Blinken’s three-day visit to the oil-rich kingdom will also focus on efforts to end conflicts in Sudan and Yemen, the joint battle against the Islamic State group (IS), and the Arab world’s relations with Israel.
His trip comes at a time of quickly shifting alliances in the Middle East, centered around a China-brokered rapprochement in March between regional heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Biden met Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, late Tuesday. The two men had “an open, candid discussion that covered the full range of regional and bilateral issues,” a US official said on anonymity. “The secretary raised human rights both generally and regarding specific issues.”
Blinken landed in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Tuesday evening and is expected to head to Riyadh on Wednesday for a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting.
The visit is Blinken’s first since the kingdom restored diplomatic ties with Iran, which the West considers a pariah over its contested nuclear activities and involvement in regional conflicts.
US-Saudi relations, centered for decades on energy and defense, were severely strained by the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.
Rights activists including Abdullah Al-Qahtani, a US citizen whose father, Mohammad Al-Qahtani, was jailed for 10 years after founding a civil rights group in Saudi Arabia and who remains unaccounted for, urged Blinken to raise their concerns.
“He has to bring up my dad’s situation. Is he alive? Is he being tortured? We don’t know,” Abdullah Al-Qahtani told a virtual news conference.
Miroslava Salazar with AFP
