Saudi crown prince visits Egypt, Jordan and Turkey to strengthen ties

Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, begins a tour this Monday that will take him to Egypt, Jordan and Turkey in order to strengthen relations with these nations. 

According to Saudi media, the tour will begin in Egypt and then the Saudi Deputy Prime Minister will go to the Kingdom of Jordan and Turkey with the aim of strengthening relations and reaching understandings in various fields and preparing for the next summit in Jeddah, which will also be attended by the President of the United States, Joe Biden. 

In his first stage of the tour, Mohammed bin Salman will meet with Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, President of Egypt, who was already in Riyadh on 8 March, demonstrating the good relations between the North African and Middle Eastern countries. In this latest meeting, the Arab leaders discussed various aspects of international politics and economics and brought positions closer together, reinforcing bilateral cooperation between the two countries. 

Subsequently, the second stage will take the Saudi crown prince to Jordan just a month after the telephone conversations that the Saudi leader held with King Abdullah II of Jordan in which they analysed the current international situation.

The third stage will take Mohammed bin Salman to Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself has already confirmed that the crown prince will visit Turkey on 22 June, as reported by Al-Ain News. 

A month and a half ago, Recep Tayyip Erdogan also visited Jeddah, marking the Turkish leader's first visit to the Kingdom since 2017. Five years ago, the Eurasian country's president was able to meet with Mohammed bin Salman himself and King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. Although due to the health and advanced age of the Saudi monarch, the de facto leader of the Sunni country is his son Mohammed bin Salman, who is in charge of leading the Sunni country. 

The aim of all these meetings is basically the same: to analyse the regional and global political and economic outlook. In addition, Mohammed bin Salman intends to strengthen economic ties and sign agreements on energy and trade, sources told Reuters.

These multilateral contacts come before US President Joe Biden visits Saudi Arabia in mid-July for an important meeting with members of US and Saudi delegations and officials from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kazhemi, at which the Saudi crown prince will also be present. 

The upcoming summit in Jeddah will be of vital importance given the political rift between the United States and Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in recent months, as the latter have felt that President Joe Biden had recently shifted his attention away from regional affairs and focused more on Asia, due to the struggle for global leadership that now exists with China. 

The Saudi and Emirati nations criticised, for example, the fact that the US giant had stopped providing them with important arms support in the war in Yemen that pits the Saudi-led Arab coalition against the Houthi rebels, who are trying to undermine the legitimately established government with the support of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the main standard-bearer of the Shiite branch of Islam and a major regional rival of the Saudi kingdom. 

Biden's situation is not easy because in the election campaign that led him to the US presidency he criticised Saudi Arabia for not respecting human rights, although the Kingdom has always been one of the US giant's main allies on issues such as the common fight against Iran and support for energy supplies. Faced with the current crisis of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Joe Biden, in view of the risk to energy supplies and rising prices, urged the members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to increase crude oil production in order to lower costs, but was met with a negative response from several of its main members, who backed the agreements reached within OPEC+, which encompasses the members of the organisation plus external allies such as Russia. However, an agreement was subsequently reached to increase production for the month of July. 

America Coordinator: José Antonio Sierra.