Kushner heading to Saudi Arabia and Qatar amid
tensions over Iranian scientist killing
Senior White House adviser and his team to travel this
week for talks with Saudi crown prince and emir of Qatar
Reuters
Mon 30 Nov
2020 08.29 GMT
White House
senior adviser Jared Kushner is headed to Saudi Arabia and Qatar this week for
talks in a region simmering with tension after the killing of an Iranian
nuclear scientist.
A senior
administration official said on Sunday that Kushner is to meet the Saudi crown
prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in the Saudi city of Neom, and the emir of Qatar
in that country in the coming days. Kushner will be joined by Middle East
envoys Avi Berkowitz and Brian Hook and Adam Boehler, chief executive of the US
International Development Finance Corporation.
The visits
would focus on resolving a dispute between Qatar and a Saudi-led alliance, the
Wall Street Journal reported, but a number of issues could be on the agenda.
Kushner and
his team helped negotiate normalization deals between Israel and Bahrain, the
United Arab Emirates and Sudan since August. The official said they would like
to advance more such agreements before Donald Trump hands power to
president-elect Joe Biden on 20 January.
US
officials believe enticing Saudi Arabia into a deal with Israel would prompt
other Arab nations to follow suit. But the Saudis do not appear to be on the
brink of reaching such a landmark deal and officials in recent weeks have been
focusing on other countries, with concern about Iran’s regional influence a
uniting factor.
Kushner’s
trip comes after the killing on Friday of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in Tehran by
unidentified assailants. Western and Israeli governments believe Fakhrizadeh
was the architect of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program.
Days before
the killing, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, travelled to Saudi
Arabia and met with Prince Mohammed, an Israeli official said, in what was the
first publicly confirmed visit by an Israeli leader. Israeli media said they
were joined by the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.
The historic
meeting underlined how opposition to Tehran is bringing about a strategic
realignment of countries in the Middle East. Prince Mohammed and Netanyahu fear
Biden will adopt policies on Iran similar to those adopted during Barack
Obama’s presidency which strained Washington’s ties with its traditional
regional allies. Biden has said he will rejoin the international nuclear pact
with Iran that Trump quit in 2018 – and work with allies to strengthen its
terms – if Tehran first resumes strict compliance.
The senior
administration official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity,
declined to give more details of Kushner’s trip for security reasons.
The
official said Kushner met at the White House last week with the Kuwaiti foreign
minister, Sheikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah. Kuwait is seen as critical
in any effort to resolve a three-year rift between Qatar and other members of
the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, which comprise the GCC,
cut diplomatic ties with Qatar in 2017 and imposed a boycott over allegations
that Qatar supported terrorism, a charge it denies.
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