The US media said that Biden would go ahead with the long-rumored Saudi stop on an upcoming trip
\nWASHINGTON
\nUS President Joe Biden will visit Saudi Arabia this month, reports said Thursday, a stark reversal for a leader who once called for the kingdom to be made a pariah.
\nThe reported decision comes hours after Saudi Arabia addressed two of Biden\u00b4s priorities by agreeing to a production hike in oil and helping extend a truce in war-battered Yemen.
\nThe New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN, quoting anonymous sources, said that Biden would go ahead with the long-rumored Saudi stop on an upcoming trip.
\nCNN said that Biden would meet Saudi Arabia\u00b4s de facto ruler, 36-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was accused by US intelligence of ordering the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
\nWhite House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she had no travel to announce, adding only: \u201cThe president will look for opportunities to engage with leaders from the Middle East region.\u201d
\nHowever, a senior administration official told AFP that if Biden \u201cdetermines that it\u00b4s in the interests of the United States to engage with a foreign leader and that such an engagement can deliver results, then he\u00b4ll do so.\u201d
\nWhile not confirming the trip, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was \u201cno question that important interests are interwoven with Saudi Arabia.\u201d
\nThe trip would reportedly happen around the time Biden travels to a NATO summit in Spain and Group of Seven summit in Germany this month.
\nHe is also widely expected to travel to Israel where, as in Saudi Arabia, he is sure to face pointed questions about slow-moving US diplomacy with the two countries\u00b4 rival, Iran.
\nWhile running for president, Biden called for Saudi leaders to be treated as \u201cthe pariah that they are\u201d after the ultraconservative kingdom\u00b4s chummy relationship with his predecessor Donald Trump.
\nTrump had largely shielded Saudi Arabia from consequences after Khashoggi, a US resident who wrote critically about Crown Prince Mohammed in The Washington Post, was lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul where he was strangled and dismembered.
\nAnd Trump\u00b4s son-in-law and top aide, Jared Kushner, had developed a close bond with the prince known by his initials \u201cMBS,\u201d reportedly conversing with him over WhatsApp chats.
\nShortly after taking office, Biden released the intelligence report that said MBS authorized Khashoggi\u00b4s killing and his administration imposed visa restrictions on dozens of Saudis accused of threatening dissidents.
\nBiden also scaled back support from a Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen amid revulsion over civilian casualties.
\n– MBS says doesn\u00b4t \u00b4care\u00b4 –
\nA close partner of the United States since the World War II era, Saudi Arabia has repeatedly managed to woo administrations in Washington that initially sought a greater distance.
\nUS officials were pleasantly surprised on Thursday as major oil producers led by Saudi Arabia grouped under OPEC+ agreed to a larger than expected hike in oil production.
\nA rise in supply could help bring down skyrocketing prices at the pump, seen as a major contributor to sagging poll numbers for Biden whose Democratic Party faces difficult congressional elections in November.
\nOfficials in Washington said that Saudi Arabia was also supportive in diplomacy that led Thursday to the extension of a fragile two-month truce between Yemen\u00b4s Riyadh-backed government and Iranian-affiliated Huthi rebels.
\n\u201cSaudi Arabia demonstrated courageous leadership by taking initiatives early on to endorse and implement terms of the UN-led truce,\u201d Biden said in a statement.
\nSaudi Arabia has also addressed concerns of US officials who saw the kingdom as overbearing in troubled Lebanon.
\nSecretary of State Antony Blinken, presenting an annual report on religious freedom, praised \u201cimportant recent moves\u201d to increase interfaith dialogue even as he acknowledges that the kingdom still bans any public practice of religions other than Islam.
\nHow to address human rights will likely be a complicated question for Biden, with MBS reportedly angered when US officials previously raised the killing of Khashoggi.
\nThe senior US official downplayed the controversy, saying that there were concerns over human rights \u201cas with many countries where we share interests.\u201d
\nThe official said that \u201cmuch\u201d of the concern over Saudi Arabia\u00b4s behavior \u201cpredated our administration\u201d and said there \u201care also strategic priorities that are important to address, and our contacts and diplomacy have intensified recently.\u201d
\nIn a rare interview earlier this year with The Atlantic, MBS said of whether Biden understood him: \u201cSimply, I do not care.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u00b4s up to him to think about the interests of America,\u201d he said with a shrug.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US media said that Biden would go ahead with the long-rumored Saudi stop on an upcoming trip WASHINGTON US President Joe Biden will visit Saudi Arabia this month, reports said Thursday, a stark reversal for a leader who once called for the kingdom to be made a pariah. The reported decision comes hours after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[503,8064,501,606],"class_list":{"0":"post-264360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-joe-biden","9":"tag-pariah","10":"tag-saudi-arabia","11":"tag-visit"},"yoast_head":"\n