... Minister Adel Al-Jubeir
was in Moscow on an official visit
and met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, aiming to facilitate the reset of the bilateral relationship launched by Riyadh earlier this year after the change of power in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Last January 23, Salman ibn Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud, half brother of the late King Abdullah took throne of Saudi Arabia. This new ruler immediately began updating the country's domestic and foreign polices. As part of this initiative, Foreign ...
... prices before the hypothetical 1968-type oil slump occurs. Since OPEC producers have almost filled their existing storage they are unlikely to keep ramping up production. National budgets of OPEC members are now critically dependent on the price of oil. Saudi Arabia, for example, had to issue first sovereign bond since 2007 to cover the budget deficit caused by cheap oil.
Even though OPEC says it intends to maintain the output ceiling to defend its share of the market and that low oil prices is a short-term ...
... the 30-year-old His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud to Russia and his talks with President Putin made
front-page news
.
As a matter of fact, in claiming the role of the leader of the Persian Gulf and the Arab World, Saudi Arabia is in the midst of a very significant political transition coupled with a
generational change
in its national leadership. Although the country’s domestic structure is quite fragile, the Saudis still have marked influence over regional ...
... not initiated one single invasion since this regime took power. Yes, it has used terrorism and non-state militia actors to further its interests, but so has pretty much every Middle Eastern country (including American allies like Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia) as well as the United States in recent decades. Iran has also cooperated with the U.S. against the Talbian, al-Qaeda, and, most recently, against ISIS. And Iran’s foreign policy record has been less the unpredictable, dangerous type ...
... reached at the summit was to jointly develop a region-wide ballistic missile defense capability and a ballistic missile early warning system. Several GCC states have necessary defense components in place already, such as short-range Patriot systems in Saudi Arabia and THAAD systems in Qatar, but the new agreement provides for the installation of a comprehensive system that would allow short- to long-range missile defense. The plan is particularly significant when one considers the GCC’s decision ...
... Development of France had announced that negotiations would be taking place regarding projects whose total cost would come to “tens of billions of euros”. And it just so happens that Laurent Fabius and French President François Hollande are
currently in Saudi Arabia
as guests at the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf summit, where they are discussing new arms deliveries. Could it be that Barack Obama was hinting to potential buyers that they should hold on to their money until “real” ...
Oil prices have recently been gaining some momentum due to a multitude of factors, including the slowing of rig count declines in the US, a possible decline in production as well as Saudi Arabia raising the oil price for Asian customers for a second consecutive month. Questions arise, however, as to where the ongoing crisis in Yemen fits in this equation.
Yemen is a minor-league oil producing country; its oil production peaked at ...
... to lie in fear of the Shiite expansion.
The Saudis have long been vocal about their
concern over the prospects of a Shiite crescent encompassing Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and Yemen could now become another ally of Iran, completing the encirclement of Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi response to the Houthi rise was akin to panic, as they rushed to pressure the Arab League into deciding to set up a coalition and launch an air campaign despite the risk that this approach would merely repeat U.S. mistakes in Afghanistan ...
... the whirlwind events in Yemen, which few predicted and hence have generated numerous
forecasts
regarding the consequences for the broader security of the Arabia Peninsula and the Middle East as a whole. They
state
that the Yemen crisis will trigger Saudi Arabia’s decline, because the Yemenis will drop their domestic squabble and close ranks to face the external threat. Others
believe
that the area is in for a full-scale war between the Sunni and the Shiite with direct and indirect involvement ...
... military parade. May 22, 2012
Every day Hadi remained in power aggravated the situation in Yemen, and the number of people dissatisfied with his rule was constantly increasing. In this regard, it is not surprising that the former president, supported by Saudi Arabia and fleeing to Aden, tried to weaken the northern territories. It is not accidental that at the beginning of March 2015, he called on the leaders of Taiz and Ibb governorates to recognize him as the legitimate president of Yemen and to provide ...
