Biden, Saudi crown prince may meet for first time as soon as next month -CNN

WASHINGTON, May well 19 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman could meet for the first time as soon as future month, CNN noted on Thursday, citing several sources.

Biden administration officers are in talks with the Saudis about arranging a prospective in-person assembly even though Biden is abroad future month, the report added.

The White Property stated it could not verify if there were any plans for Biden to meet the Saudi crown prince. U.S. national protection adviser Jake Sullivan reported on Thursday he discussed the problem of oil generation with Saudi Arabia.

U.S.-Saudi ties have been strained by Biden’s conclusions very last yr to curtail U.S. help for the Saudi-led army marketing campaign in Yemen and to publish intelligence that the crown prince, who is the kingdom’s de facto ruler, permitted an procedure to capture or destroy journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in Turkey in 2018. read through a lot more

The Saudi government has denied any involvement by the crown prince, who is known as MBS, in the murder of Khashoggi. The journalist, a U.S. resident who wrote view columns for the Washington Publish essential of MBS, was killed and dismembered by a crew of operatives connected to the crown prince in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Relations in between the United States and the world’s premier oil exporter have also been frayed by Biden’s endeavours to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear offer, which U.S. allies in the Gulf argue does as well minor to stop Tehran from obtaining an atomic bomb.

Washington has also been seeking, so considerably devoid of accomplishment, to persuade Saudi Arabia to pump extra oil further than the compact enhance it has agreed inside of the OPEC+ manufacturing group to offset potential losses in Russian provides after Moscow was sanctioned by the West over its invasion of Ukraine. Saudi Arabia has refused to consider sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool

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