Is Oil-And-Gas Friendship Possible Between Russia and Saudi Arabia?
... excessively insistent statements are being made for the benefit of third countries and domestic audiences. This does not mean that Russia's work with Iran precludes cooperation with Saudi Arabia. Even so, with investment programmes shrinking in all the oil exporting countries and with the existing strategic contradictions between Saudi Arabia and Russia, Moscow will find working with the two Middle Eastern countries at once to be an extremely difficult balancing act. The oil-and-gas cooperation plans recently announced by Russia and Saudi Arabia may sound like part of a rapprochement trend. Yet one should not expect too much from this rhetoric....