{"id":234569,"date":"2019-10-14T19:30:17","date_gmt":"2019-10-14T23:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=234569"},"modified":"2019-10-14T19:30:17","modified_gmt":"2019-10-14T23:30:17","slug":"russias-putin-visits-saudi-arabia-on-mideast-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/10\/14\/russias-putin-visits-saudi-arabia-on-mideast-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia&#8217;s Putin visits Saudi Arabia on Mideast trip"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud: cooperation in the world energy market <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gajDM7uPgv\">https:\/\/t.co\/gajDM7uPgv<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yTfzo7ee43\">pic.twitter.com\/yTfzo7ee43<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; President of Russia (@KremlinRussia_E) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KremlinRussia_E\/status\/1183797151794634759?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 14, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates \u2014 Russian President Vladimir Putin travelled to Saudi Arabia on Monday, meeting with the oil-rich nation&#8217;s king and crown prince as he seeks to cement Moscow&#8217;s political and energy ties across the Mideast.<\/p>\n<p>Putin received all the trappings of a state visit, with a mounted guard escorting his limousine to King Salman&#8217;s Al-Yamamah palace in Riyadh on his first visit to the kingdom since 2007.<\/p>\n<p>In the intervening years, the Arab Spring roiled the wider Mideast as Putin would partner with Iran in backing Syrian President Bashar Assad in that country&#8217;s still-raging war. Saudi Arabia unsuccessfully backed those trying to oust Assad.<\/p>\n<p>But more recently, Russia joined OPEC in lowering their production beginning in 2017, the first such cut for the cartel in a decade. It reduced production by 1.2 million barrels per day, with 800,000 coming from OPEC and 400,000 coming from non-OPEC members, an arrangement now known as OPEC+.<\/p>\n<p>That helped boost energy prices. Crude oil sold for over $100 a barrel in the summer of 2014 before bottoming out below $30 a barrel in January 2016. On Monday, it traded just under $60 a barrel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe OPEC+ production cuts agreement has been extended thanks to active participation of our countries,\u201d Putin said.<\/p>\n<p>Putin listened to a Saudi military band play Russia&#8217;s national anthem, then greeted officials and sat with King Salman for a conversation captured by state television. Earlier, a broadly grinning Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman walked up to greet Putin on his arrival. The crown prince later engaged in a conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.<\/p>\n<p>Putin even paused to admire a traditional curved knife, a janbiya, worn by a member of the Saudi honour guard on hand.<\/p>\n<p>In brief remarks, the 83-year-old King Salman praised relations between Riyadh and Moscow, especially energy agreements. At a recent OPEC meeting in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz described the arrangement as \u201c&#8217;til death do us part.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Prince Abdulaziz briefed both leaders before a signing ceremony at the palace on 20 agreements between the two nations.<\/p>\n<p>Putin praised King Salman&#8217;s efforts at maintaining relations, noting the monarch&#8217;s 2017 trip to Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRussia sees the expansion of friendly and mutually beneficial ties with Saudi Arabia as particularly important,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia likely wants to talk about ongoing tensions gripping the wider Middle East, where the kingdom is locked in a standoff with its archrival Iran and Turkey&#8217;s military campaign in Syria has launched an added crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia also remains worried about Iran. Since President Donald Trump pulled out of Tehran&#8217;s nuclear deal with world powers over a year ago, risks have risen in the Persian Gulf. Since the summer, a series of attacks have targeted oil tankers in the region.<\/p>\n<p>These attacks culminated in a Sept. 14 drone-and-cruise-missile assault that knocked out half of Saudi Arabia&#8217;s oil production. The U.S. blames Iran for the attack, something Tehran denies. Yemen&#8217;s Houthi rebels, whom the kingdom has been battling since March 2015, claimed the assault, though analysts say the missiles used wouldn&#8217;t have the range to reach the targets in the kingdom from Yemen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe look forward to working with Russia to achieve security and stability and fight terrorism,\u201d King Salman said.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Associated Press writer Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud: cooperation in the world energy market https:\/\/t.co\/gajDM7uPgv pic.twitter.com\/yTfzo7ee43 &mdash; &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":234570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-jon-gambrell","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234571,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234569\/revisions\/234571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}