The message was delivered to the White House by the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel A. Al-Jubeir, who returned to Washington after a trip to the oil-rich kingdom last week, a former senior U.S. official told The Envoy on condition of anonymity.
The exact subject of the correspondence could not be fully ascertained, but the source described it as concerning a Saudi diplomatic initiative not involving Israel and Palestine--possibly Syria or Yemen. The message was described as sensitive, substantive and "close-hold," meaning not briefed to many officials above the highest levels.
The Saudi ambassador has since left Washington again for Saudi Arabia, a second senior former U.S. official who works in the region told The Envoy, suggesting the ambassador may be bringing a White House's response back to Riyadh.
The former U.S. officials did not think the message solely concerned American-Saudi bilateral relations, which have been recovering from a period of tension. Riyadh has been upset by the Arab Spring uprisings, and was horrified by Obama's call last February for Washington's ally of three decades, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, to step down from power.
King Abdullah, 88, declined to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then Defense Secretary Robert Gates when they were traveling in the region last March.
Relations have seemed to improve, however, since that low point. The Saudi king granted an audience to Gates before his retirement in April. He has also met with White House counterterrorism advisor (and former CIA station chief for Saudi Arabia) John Brennan and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon.
Donilon met with the Saudi King for over two hours in April. He delivered a personal letter from Obama, the Washington Post's David Ignatius reported. "The reassuring message ... was about 'the bond we have in a relationship of 70 years that's rooted in shared strategic interest,'" Ignatius wrote, citing Donilon's description of Obama's message to the king.
The director of the Saudi embassy in Washington's information office (Ambassador al-Jubeir's brother, Nail al-Jubeir) did not immediately respond to a query from The Envoy about the message sent to the White House from the king.
Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia in the next couple of weeks, an American official told The Envoy Tuesday, on condition of anonymity because the trip has not yet been announced.
No comments:
Post a Comment