The United states and Saudi Arabia agreed on the importance of stopping Iran from "acquiring a nuclear weapon", during a visit by US President Joe Biden, a joint statement carried by the Saudi state news agency said.
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Biden arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, of Friday afternoon for the fourth day of his Middle East trip, and on the heels of visits to Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The statement said Biden also affirmed the United States' continued commitment to supporting "Saudi Arabia's security and territorial defense, and facilitating the Kingdom's ability to obtain necessary capabilities to defend its people and territory against external threats."
HRH the Crown Prince receives the US President at Al-Salam Palace in Jeddah.
#SaudiUSSummit#SPAGOV pic.twitter.com/K5ORvi3E4m— SPAENG (@Spa_Eng) July 15, 2022
A senior Washington official told reporters that during the meeting, Biden also stressed the importance of integrating Israel as part of a new axis largely driven by shared concerns over Iran.
"We believe there's great value in including as many of the capabilities in this region as possible and certainly Israel has significant air and missile defense capabilities, as they need to. But we're having these discussions bilaterally with these nations," the official said.
The meetings in Saudi Arabia with heads of state from six Arab Gulf countries plus Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq for a regional summit, seek to bolster the US position in the region and knit it together against Iran.
Tehran and Riyadh, the leading Shiite and Sunni Muslim powers in the Middle East, severed ties in 2016 over backing opposing sides in proxy wars across the region, from Yemen to Syria and elsewhere.
Saudi Arabia and the United States underscored the need to further deter Iran's interference in "the internal affairs of other countries, its support for terrorism through its armed proxies, and its efforts to destabilize the security and stability of the region," the statement said.
Hours before the Gulf Cooperation Council summit, the White House released satellite imagery that indicates Russian officials have twice visited Iran in recent weeks for a showcase of weapons-capable drones it is looking to acquire for use in its ongoing war in Ukraine.
None of the countries represented at the summit have moved in lockstep with the US to sanction Russia, a key foreign policy priority for the Biden administration. If anything, the UAE has emerged as a sort of financial haven for Russian billionaires and their multimillion-dollar yachts. Egypt remains open to Russian tourists.
The release of the satellite imagery – which shows Russian officials visited Kashan Airfield on June 8 and July 15 to get a look at the drones – could help the administration better tie the relevance of the war to many Arab nations own concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions and other malign activity in the region.
A senior Biden administration official, who briefed reporters ahead of the summit, said that Moscow's efforts to acquire drones from Tehran show that Russia is "effectively making a bet on Iran."
As part of the visit, the United States and Saudi Arabia signed 18 agreements and memoranda of understanding for joint cooperation in the fields of energy, investment, communications, space and health, Saudi state TV al-Ekhbariya reported.
Some of the agreements were signed between Saudi ministries of energy and investment; Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu; and some private sector companies and US companies including Boeing and Raytheon in the defense industry; Medtronic, Digital Diagnostics, IQVIA in the healthcare sector; and a number of other American companies in the fields of energy, tourism, education, manufacturing and textiles.
The statement further noted that the US and other peacekeepers would leave Tiran island where they have been stationed as part of accords reached in 1978 and which led to a peace deal between Israel and Egypt.
Tiran lies between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, in a strategic area that leads to the Israeli port of Eilat.
Washington also welcomed a Saudi move to open its air space to civilian aircraft flying to and from Israel, which had previously been barred with rare exceptions, the statement said.
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