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7 April 2011 |
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Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah was set in talks with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates to discuss potentially bolstering Saudi measures to counter Iranian missiles, the Associated Press reported. The Pentagon chief traveled to Riyadh on Wednesday (see GSN, Nov. 1, 2010). Saudi-U.S. tensions have climbed following the Obama administration's urging earlier this year for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to resign; top Saudi officials considered Washington's move a betrayal of a long-term supporter in the region similar to the Saudi government (see GSN, March 17). "'It's a great exaggeration to say this relationship's ruptured," Gates told NBC's "Meet the Press" in March. "We have a very strong military-to-military relationship. As you know, the Saudis just made one of the largest purchases of American weapons in their history," he said, addressing $60 billion in planned U.S. arms sales to the Middle Eastern nation made public late last year. The weapons procurements are largely aimed at countering Iran, a longtime rival of Saudi Arabia, according to AP. Gates is expected to tell Abdullah the weapons sale is moving forward as expected, and also to encourage the monarch to buy updated U.S. Patriot missile interceptors, said a high-level defense official accompanying the Defense head this week. Gates would also promote the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, which is intended to destroy enemy ballistic missiles traveling from farther distances (see GSN, March 31). The United Arab Emirates has indicated its intention to buy THAAD defenses, the high-level defense source said. The discussion in Riyadh would address Tehran's missile programs as well as its disputed atomic activities, said Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell (see related GSN story, today; Robert Burns, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, April 6). "Whenever (the secretary) visits the Saudis or anyone else in the region,
Iran will be a major focus of their conversation -- both in terms of the
regional threat they pose in pursuit of their nuclear program (and) their
ballistic missile program, but also in terms lately of the role they’ve been
playing in trying to exploit the unrest in the region to their advantage," the
Pentagon quoted Morrell as saying (U.S. Defense Department
release, April 7). |
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