The King and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia congratulated Joe Biden on Sunday.
Riyadh:
The King of Saudi Arabia and his powerful crown prince on Sunday congratulated Joe Biden on his victory in the US presidential election, state media said, a day after TV stations declared him the winner.
King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have sent congratulatory messages to US President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, the official Saudi press agency reported.
He added that the king underlined the “close historical relations of their two countries, which each seeks to strengthen and further develop in all fields”.
Saudi Arabia’s largest oil exporter was the last Gulf nation to congratulate Biden on his victory over US President Donald Trump.
The UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar had all praised the Democratic candidate for his success on Saturday night.
In 2017, Saudi Arabia hosted Trump on his first official overseas visit. The president has established very close ties, in particular with the de facto prince, Prince Mohammed.
Many of Trump’s policies have worked well in Saudi Arabia and much of the rest of the Gulf, especially his unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal two years ago and the subsequent reimposition of massive sanctions against the Islamic Republic. .
Trump’s warm ties to the Gulf Arab states contrast with those of his predecessor Barack Obama, whose conclusion of a deal with Iran has dismayed Tehran’s rival Riyadh and its neighbors.
Biden served as vice president of the Obama administration, and analysts say Saudi Arabia fears a rollback of sanctions imposed on Iran by the Trump administration.
Trump also pushed back against anti-Saudi resolutions in Congress for his controversial involvement in the war in Yemen, which claimed thousands of civilian lives, and the gruesome 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
The Biden-Harris campaign said on the second anniversary of Khashoggi’s murder this year that their administration would “reassess our relationship with the kingdom, end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and ensure that that America does not check its values at the door of selling arms or buying oil ”.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
