The president of the USA Joe Bidenwho next week will visit Saudi Arabiaaspires to strengthen a “strategic partnership” based on “mutual interests and responsibilities” while remaining true to “fundamental American values,” as he wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post.
In this lengthy article, the US president responds to his critics, stating: “I know many disagree with my decision to go to Saudi Arabia. My views on human rights are clear and enduring, fundamental freedoms are always on the agenda when I travel abroad and the same is true on this trip,” he assures.
Before his election, Joe Biden had promised to make oil-rich Saudi Arabia a “pariah” because of the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
President Biden notes in his article on Washington Post that he had declassified the US intelligence report on it with the circumstances of Jamal Khashoggi’s death. But he refrained from mentioning the name of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who is alleged – according to the report – to have “approved” the killing. Joe Biden is set to meet the Saudi crown prince next week in Jeddah.
“My job as president is to ensure the stability and security of the country”
“My job as president is to ensure the stability and security of the country,” the 79-year-old US president underlines, citing the need to confront Russia’s aggression, be “in the best possible position” vis-a-vis China and ensure ” greater stability’ in the Middle East. “To do these things, we need to have direct contact with the countries that can contribute to them. Saudi Arabia is one of them,” he explains, arguing that “we have reversed the ‘blank check’ policy that we inherited” from the previous president, Donald Trump.
He clarifies that his goal was to redefine and not break relations with a country that has been a partner of the US for 80 years.
The US president also addresses a major topic of his trip: oil, at a time when high prices are angering Americans and hurting his and his party’s popularity. Riyadh, Biden assures, “is working with my experts to help stabilize the oil market.”
Joe Biden plans to hold meetings with Israel’s interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and then travel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In fact, he emphasizes that he will become the first US president to travel from Israel to Saudi Arabia, a country that does not recognize the existence of the Jewish state.
He points out that he wants “progress” in a region that remains “full of challenges”: from Iran’s nuclear program to instability in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Lebanon. He does, however, see “promising trends,” which “the United States can leverage like no other country. My trip next week will serve that purpose,” President Biden said.
Source: News Beast
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