WASHINGTON (Anadolu) – U.S. President Joe Biden is saying he aims to reorient America’s strategic relations with Saudi Arabia.
In a guest op-ed published by The Washington Post late Saturday, Biden said he will travel to the Middle East next week to start “a new and more promising” chapter of America’s engagement there.
“From the start, my aim was to reorient — but not rupture — relations with a country that’s been a strategic partner for 80 years. Today, Saudi Arabia has helped to restore unity among the six countries of Persian Gulf Cooperation Council, has fully supported the truce in Yemen and is now working with my experts to help stabilize oil markets with other OPEC producers,” he said.
Arguing that a more secure and integrated Middle East benefits Americans in many ways, he said he will pursue diplomacy intensely — including through face-to-face meetings — to achieve his goals.
“I know that there are many who disagree with my decision to travel to Saudi Arabia. My views on human rights are clear and long-standing, and fundamental freedoms are always on the agenda when I travel abroad, as they will be during this trip, just as they will be in Israel and the West Bank,” he stressed.
He said when he meets with Saudi leaders on Friday, he will aim to strengthen a strategic partnership going forward based on mutual interests and responsibilities, while also holding true to fundamental American values.
Biden, who was a presidential candidate in 2018, said at the time that the murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul had made Riyadh a “pariah.”
Underlining that he will also be the first U.S. president to fly from Israeli-occupied territories to the Saudi port city of Jeddah, he said this trip will also be “a small symbol of the budding relations” and “steps toward normalization between Israel and the Arab world.”
“Next week, I will be the first president to visit the Middle East since 9/11 without U.S. troops engaged in a combat mission there. It’s my aim to keep it that way,” he added.
Biden’s West Asia trip also comes as the idea of the formation of a Middle East military alliance similar to NATO has been floated by some regional states, raising eyebrows among world leaders as the expansion of NATO has already wreaked havoc across Russia’s western borders.