RIYADH, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia new foreign minister insisted Monday that King Salman’s last minute decision not to attend a Camp David summit was not intended as a snub to the United States.
“This is not related in any way, shape or form to any disagreement between the two countries,” Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters at Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Washington.
As late as Friday, US officials said King Salman had accepted an invitation to meet President Barack Obama at the White House on Wednesday ahead of a Camp David retreat for Gulf leaders.
But the kingdom now says it will instead send Crown Prince and Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayef and Salman’s son, Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman.
This was interpreted by many as a deliberate rebuff to Obama, at a time when ties between the allies have been strained by Saudi opposition to a proposed US nuclear deal with Iran.
But Jubeir, until recently the Saudi ambassador to Washington, said this idea was “really off base” and that the replacement delegates were “the right people” to represent Riyadh.
He also played down reports that Saudi Arabia was lobbying for a new written defense pact with the United States, explaining: “Our faith in America’s word is total.”
It is not just the Saudi king who will be skipping the Camp David summit of US and allied Arab leaders. Most Gulf heads of state won’t be there.
The absences will put a damper on talks that are designed to reassure key Arab allies, and almost certainly reflect dissatisfaction among leaders of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council with Washington’s handling of Iran and what they expect to get out of the meeting.
Rulers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman never publicly announced they would attend the summit — so officially at least, there was no reversal of plans.
However, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters in Washington on Monday that Saudi King Salman had formally accepted the invitation to meet with Obama ahead of the summit.
Obama had planned to meet Salman one-on-one a day before the gathering of leaders at the presidential retreat but the White House did not take the Saudi king’s decision to skip the summit as a sign of any substantial disagreement with the United States.
The king, who took power in January after his brother King Abdullah died, has not traveled abroad since his ascension to the throne.
The tiny island kingdom of Bahrain said separately that its delegation would be headed by the country’s crown prince, Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa.
Bahrain, whose leadership has close ties to the Saudis, is an important military ally of the US. It is the long-standing host to the Navy’s 5th Fleet, which is responsible for operations around the Arabian Peninsula and northern Indian Ocean, and is Washington’s main naval counterbalance to Iran.
At the summit, leaders of Gulf nations will be looking for assurances that they have Obama’s support at a time when the region feels under siege from Islamic extremists and by Iran’s rising influence. The Gulf states worry the nuclear pact taking shape with the US, Iran and other nations may embolden Tehran to act more aggressively in the region.
Credit: Times of Israel
