Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman held a rare meeting with American evangelical Christians on Thursday, as the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom seeks to open up more to the world and repair an image of religious intolerance.
The United States and Britain, Saudi Arabia’s biggest arms suppliers, are stepping up their pressure for a ceasefire in the Yemen war, the world’s worst man-made humanitarian disaster.
Defense Secretary James Mattis made a forceful call for all parties involved in the brutal war in Yemen to come to the negotiation table within the next month, to bring to an end to a conflict pushed by a Saudi Arabian-led coalition that has devolved into a military stalemate that has produced one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
US President Donald Trump said Saturday he was not satisfied with Saudi Arabia’s response to a dissident journalist’s death, but warned against scrapping a multibillion-dollar deal with the conservative kingdom.
U.S. stocks fell more than 1 percent on Thursday as the European Commission issued a warning regarding Italy’s budget and concerns mounted over the possibility of strained relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia, further denting investors’ appetite for risk amid global trade tensions and rising interest rates.
The United States received a payment of $100 million from Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the same day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Riyadh to discuss the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a State Department official confirmed Wednesday amid global calls for answers in the case.
US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he had spoken with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and been assured that a ‘full’ probe into the disappearance of a critical journalist was underway.
The Saudi government is considering whether to say that rogue intelligence operatives murdered activist and writer Jamal Khashoggi by mistake inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul earlier this month, multiple media outlets reported Monday.
The United Nations is warning that 13 million people in Yemen are facing starvation.
The disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has hardened resistance in the U.S. Congress to selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, already a sore point for many lawmakers concerned about the humanitarian crisis created by Yemen’s civil war.
A Trump administration plan to organize friendly Middle East regimes into an ‘Arab NATO’ is gathering unexpected steam, with the State Department on Wednesday confirming that Saudi Arabia and eight other allies plan a meeting soon to start putting the idea into practice.
An Iranian media outlet close to the hard-line Revolutionary Guard published a video Tuesday threatening missile attacks on the capitals of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, further raising tensions after a weekend militant attack on an Iranian military parade.
Iran is stepping up its involvement with political and militant Shiite groups in Pakistan, in what foreign affairs experts see as an escalating shadow proxy war with Saudi Arabia in a country with the world’s second-largest Muslim population.
The United States on Thursday welcomed Saudi Arabia’s contribution of $100 million to help stabilize parts of Syria no longer held by Islamic State, which comes as the Trump administration looks to cut back on foreign aid.
Qatar has pledged to invest $15 billion in Turkey as Ankara rolls out measures to strengthen the lira amid a trade spat with the US.
Saudi Arabia and Canada are currently locked in a diplomatic spat over human rights, with both countries refusing to back down despite a breakdown in future trade deals, suspended passenger flights and a flurry of other sanctions.
The State Department sought for a second day to avoid inflaming a spiraling diplomatic row between Saudi Arabia and Canada Tuesday, calling on both sides to sort out their differences over a delicate human rights dispute.
A military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the United States has cut secret deals with al-Qaida fighters, paying some to leave key cities and towns the militants had seized across Yemen and letting others retreat with weapons, equipment and wads of looted cash, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. Hundreds more were recruited to join the coalition itself.
Saudi Arabia has reassured Arab allies it will not endorse any Middle East peace plan that fails to address Jerusalem’s status or refugees’ right of return, easing their concerns that the kingdom might back a nascent US deal which aligns with Israel on key issues.
French President Emmanuel Macron and President Trump on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels have reportedly agreed on a plan to push Middle East allies Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to start talks on way to put an end to Syria’s seven-year civil war.