U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in the city of Jeddah on Friday (July 15) as part of his Middle East tour, Reuters reports.
He was greeted by Prince Khalid al-Faisal, the governor of Mecca province, where the Red Sea port city is located.
Other people in the Saudi greeting party including the country's Ambassador to the United States, Reema bint Bandar Al Saud.
The U.S leader is in Saudi Arabia to discuss energy supply, human rights, and security cooperation on a trip designed to reset the U.S. relationship with a country he once pledged to make a "pariah" on the world stage following the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Biden's sensitive trip will be closely watched for body language and rhetoric and will test his ability to reset relations with Saudi Arabia's powerful crown prince.
U.S. intelligence concluded that Mohammed bin Salman, known as MbS, directly approved the 2018 murder of Khashoggi, while the crown prince denies having a role in the killing.
The White House said Biden would hold a bilateral meeting with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz at the royal palace in Jeddah and then the president and his team would have a working session with MbS and Saudi ministers at the palace.
Biden became the first American president to fly from Israel directly to Jeddah, a step the White House says represents a “small symbol” of warming Israeli-Saudi ties.
At the summit that began in Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea city of Jeddah on Saturday, Biden said the United States “will not walk away” from the Middle East and leave a vacuum filled by Russia, China or Iran, Al Jazeera reports.
Biden also told the summit US is committed to ensure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.
Leaders of six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates – plus Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq are holding talks on regional security and bilateral relations with the United States at the summit.
“We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia or Iran,” Biden said. “We will seek to build on this moment with active, principled, American leadership.”
Although US forces continue to target armed groups in the region and remain deployed at bases throughout the Middle East, Biden suggested that he was turning the page after Washington’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Today, I am proud to be able to say that the eras of land wars in the region, wars that involved huge numbers of American forces, is not under way,” he said.
Biden also pressed his counterparts, many of whom lead repressive governments, to ensure human rights, including women’s rights, and allow their citizens to speak openly.
“The future will be won by the countries that unleash the full potential of their populations,” he said, including allowing people to “question and criticise leaders without fear of reprisal.”
The US president spent Saturday morning meeting individually with the leaders of Iraq, Egypt and the UAE, some of whom he had never sat down with.
