2023-08-05 12:38:00
Saudi Arabia is hosting a meeting on Ukraine on Saturday with representatives of emerging powers and Western countries, a new attempt by Riyadh to strengthen its international influence, even if expectations remain limited for this umpteenth peace initiative.
The wealthy Gulf monarchy announced on Friday the arrival of “security advisers from brother countries” to discuss the “Ukrainian crisis” in Jeddah, on the shores of the Red Sea, without revealing the names of the participating states.
This two-day meeting reflects, according to the official SPA news agency, the “disposition of the kingdom to exercise a mission of good offices” to achieve “a permanent peace”.
About 30 countries, excluding Russia, have been invited, according to diplomats who requested anonymity.
According to them, Ryad was particularly keen to receive Brazil, India, China and South Africa, members of the BRICS (with Russia) who, unlike Westerners, did not take sides with Ukraine. without however supporting the Russian invasion launched in February 2022.
“Making failures forget”
Criticized by Western countries for its refusal to condemn Russia, China sent its envoy for Ukraine, Li Hui, to Jeddah. Beijing said it was determined to “continue to play a constructive role for a political settlement of the Ukrainian crisis”.
India and South Africa also reported their participation.
Paris is for its part represented by Emmanuel Bonne, the diplomatic adviser to President Emmanuel Macron, according to the French embassy in Riyadh.
On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed a “very important” meeting.
Close to Moscow and maintaining good relations with kyiv, Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of crude oil, has already sought to position itself as a mediator.
Ukraine, along with the United States, has nevertheless criticized Ryad for playing into Russia’s hands, under Western sanctions, by jointly pursuing an oil policy aimed at boosting prices on world markets.
Also at work in the talks on Sudan, the scene of a conflict since mid-April, Saudi Arabia, after several years of erratic policies under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, nevertheless sees itself today in peace maker.
The kingdom has improved its relations with its own rivals, starting with Qatar, Turkey and even, this year again, Iran and Syria.
The Jeddah meeting “is a perfect illustration of the success of Saudi Arabia’s multipolar strategy,” Ali Shihabi, a Saudi analyst close to the government, told AFP.
But if it seeks to establish itself as a “middle world power”, Saudi Arabia also hopes “to make people forget some of its past failures, such as its intervention in Yemen or the murder of Jamal Khashoggi”, underlines Joost Hiltermann to AFP , responsible for the Middle East at the specialized NGO International Crisis Group.
Riyadh launched a military operation in neighboring Yemen in 2015 to support government forces there fighting Houthi rebels, close to Iran. Accusations of war crimes and the humanitarian crisis, one of the worst in the world, has tarnished the image of Saudi Arabia.
“Balance Strategy”
But it was the stupor over the 2018 killing of critical Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul that threw the once-low-key kingdom into its greatest diplomatic turmoil.
The volatility of the energy markets linked to the war in Ukraine, however, gave Saudi Arabia an opportunity to regain its place on the world stage.
From now on, Ryad “wants to be alongside India or Brazil, because it is only as a group that these middle powers can hope to have an impact”, estimates Joost Hiltermann.
Saudi Arabia has backed UN Security Council resolutions denouncing the Russian invasion as well as Moscow’s declared annexation of territory in eastern Ukraine.
In May, the kingdom had invited Volodymyr Zelensky to a summit of the Arab League, which had taken the opportunity to accuse certain leaders of the region of turning a blind eye to the Russian invasion.
But Riyadh is adopting a “classic balancing act”, notes Umar Karim, an expert on Saudi politics at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.
It is therefore unlikely that Russia will find this initiative “unacceptable”, he told AFP.
05/08/2023 12:36:37 – Ryad (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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