Search results

Syrian foreign minister Faisal Mekdad travelled to Jeddah for talks with his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal Bin Farhan, as part of a concerted attempt by Riyadh to move the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad back into the Arab mainstream. Prince Faisal then travelled to Damascus for talks with Assad, the first such trip by a Saudi foreign minister since 2011.

The United States Senate confirmed Michael Ratney as ambassador to Saudi Arabia in a vote mid-March. Ratney has previously served as US special envoy for Syria, consul general in Jerusalem and acting deputy assistant secretary for the Levant and Israel and Palestinian Affairs.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is preparing to launch a new body to oversee shipbuilding and ship maintenance and repair services in the kingdom in the near future, in its latest effort to diversify the economy and develop new industrial sectors.

Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states are reshaping their regional outlook, as transactional relationships replace some of the more ideologically-driven approaches taken since the 2011 Arab Spring. Former outcasts led by Iran and Syria are being welcomed into Gulf palaces once again, at least in part due to concerns the US can no longer provide a trusted security umbrella. In this rapidly changing environment, Iran could yet emerge as a significant new market for GCC investors.

Saudi National Bank (SNB)’s investment in banking giant Credit Suisse has proved to be a costly transaction, with the value of its stake falling by around $1.2bn in the space of a few months.

National carrier Saudia's fleet will be updated with at least 39 new Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, but newly-established Riyadh Air could get even more, underlining Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s determination that yet another Public Investment Fund (PIF) vehicle muscles into the domestic market. The deal is worth close to $37bn, US government officials calculated – suggesting that, whatever the geopolitics, America Inc can still flex its muscles in the kingdom.

The United Kingdom has denied that Saudi Arabia is set to join a multinational initiative to develop a sixth-generation fighter jet, following a claim by Saudi defence minister Prince Khalid Bin Salman.

Saudi Arabia's King Salman Bin Abdelaziz appointed a well-known local journalist - Salman Bin Yousef Bin Ali Al-Dosari - as media minister, in a minor reshuffle of officials. Al-Dosari is a former editor of London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat.

Saudi Prince Fahd Bin Mansour Bin Nasser in early March launched the Saudi-Pakistan Tech House in Islamabad, to focus on creating opportunities via partnerships with Pakistani IT companies.

Saudi Princess Lamia Bint Majed Bin Saud was reappointed as a goodwill ambassador to the Arab world for the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) late February, for a second term (she was first appointed in 2020).

Former Saudi deputy defence minister Prince Khalid Bin Sultan is being sued for at least £30m ($36m) by an Irish subsidiary of China Minsheng Bank over unpaid debts linked to a personal guarantee he had provided for a private Boeing 787 jet.

The relationship between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) and UAE President (since May 2022) Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan (MBZ) goes back some way.  However, the two have grown more distant in recent years.

Relations between the two heavyweight Gulf monarchies – Saudi Arabia and the UAE – appear to have succumbed to a renewed period of tension, amid rising economic competition and a growing list of differences over regional diplomatic issues.

Control of the Asir region has fluctuated between different groups over the centuries. By the 1830s, the Al-Ayed dynasty was in control, until the area was captured by the Ottomans in the late 1860s. Saudi Arabia’s founder King Abdelaziz (Ibn Saud) brought Asir under his direct rule in the early 1920s.

The mountainous province in Saudi Arabia's south-west has been earmarked as a future centre for tourism, notwithstanding the threats posed by attacks from Houthi rebels across the border in Yemen. Asir could be a model for Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s post-oil development ambitions, as well as for more short-term efforts to stabilise potentially restless populations.