In Jeddah, there are those who have achieved their political goals: they are the Saudis, who have shrewdly managed to position themselves, in the shoes of facilitators, between the United States and China, as well as between NATO and EU countries and the varied BRICS area and Global South. The Jeddah talks on Ukraine (5-6 August 2023) can be read by looking, as always, at the ′glass half full` -about 40 countries gathered- and at the ′half empty` one – Russia was not invited and no documents final has been signed. However, there is one incontrovertible fact: Saudi Arabia managed to seat China at a diplomatic table organized by the Ukrainians in which they discussed, even with the Americans, starting from the “peace formula” elaborated by Kyiv.
The United States they supported the Saudi meeting held – at the level of national security advisers – in a period in which the dialogue between Washington and Riyadh on the Middle East is particularly intense. Last June, Denmark hosted a similar meeting, less well-attended and less impactful, however, than the one in Jeddah. And without China, which hadn’t accepted the invitation. For the crown prince and prime minister Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, this is a significant result, especially in the delicate management of competing relations with Washington and Beijing.
Mohammed bin Salman the facilitator
For Saudi Arabian diplomacy, success is undeniable. And it is not for the ‘volatile’ results – the participants would have agreed on the principle of the territorial integrity of Ukraine – but for having succeeded in bring together the G7 and Western Area countries with the BRICS countries (China, India, Brazil, South Africa) and the Global South. Since 2021, MbS has been wearing, with increasing dynamism, the garments of mediator even if, in the case of the Jeddah talks, ‘facilitator’ is the more appropriate word. Between economic convenience and image calculation, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia has recalibrated its foreign policy, for now putting the most divisive choices and tones of the past in parentheses to wear the role of the ′coalition builder` aimed at stability in the Gulf and in the Middle East (for example, the resumption of diplomatic relations with Iran and Syria), as well as global de-escalation.
Objective stability and geopolitical weight
The first Saudi target today is the key economic growth post-oil, inseparable from the stability of the regional and international framework. This is why Ukraine, as an international crisis, takes on an important connotation for Riyadh as well. By hosting the conversation on the invaded Ukraine, MbS indeed showed the Americans a remarkable, albeit opportunistic, autonomy in foreign policy: not only has he chosen to inflict displeasure on Russia (with which relations however remain strong), but he has shown that he knows how to get the Chinese to listen, at least, to Kyiv’s version, moreover in the presence of the Americans and in a multilateral forum. It is no coincidence that the Saudi foreign minister was the only one of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries to travel to the Ukrainian capital, a trip followed by the surprising presence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Arab League summit in May, organized right from Saudi Arabia.
For the kingdom, the Jeddah talks represented the synthesis of Riyadh’s traditional foreign policythat of the special relationship with the United States driven by defense interests, and the multipolar projection of Arabia of today and tomorrow, oriented more and more to the east (China, India) and to the south (Africa, Latin America), due to economic interests and geopolitical aspirations.
Arabia, the USA, Europe
Even with this result, Saudi Arabia is preparing to participate in the BRICS summit on 22-24 August in South Africa, at which time his entry into the organization could be announced. Riyadh thus consolidates the multipole binary, now strategic, and returns to collect concrete reassurances from the Americans on the subject of maritime safety. After the recent attacks on commercial ships by Iran between the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman (twenty incidents in two years according to the Pentagon), the United States has sent two warships with 3,000 troops to the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. A tangible – and not obvious – sign of attention from Washington to Riyadh and the monarchies of the region, however in line with the strategic interests of the Americans in the quadrant. And with the need to prevent any moves by China, given that Beijing depends on hydrocarbons from the Gulf and has already sponsored the resumption of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Speaking of international diplomacy, however, the picture is rather bleak, especially for us Europeans. And it mirrors ours loss of influence and the growing political weight of the Gulf. Exactly two years ago, while the Taliban were retaking Kabul, the Qatar was helping the US military leave Afghanistan, guaranteeing logistical support and above all maintaining communication with the Taliban. Since 2023, the US has been partnering with Saudi Arabia to have the military factions fighting in Sudan “converse”, again in Jeddah. In 2018, the directors of the were still Saudis and Emiratis peace between Ethiopia and Eritreawhile in 2022 Qatar brokered an agreement between the military government and opposition groups in Chad.
Turkey (wheat agreement), Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (prisoner exchanges), are so far the only ones who have negotiated something between Russia and Ukraine, a crisis in which the trend of non-European mediators is repeating itself. And now MbS is trying again from Jeddah. But the prince, who has now chosen to show us the reassuring face of the facilitator, is still the leader of Saudi authoritarian modernization, the man whom the CIA considers the instigator of the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. To remind us that that of the mediator – albeit useful also for our interests – is only one of the many masks of the new Saudi power.
Cover photo EPA/LUDOVIC MARIN / POOL MAXPPP OUT