Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Riyadh today for a three-day visit to meet with Saudi officials.
During his visit to Riyadh, Pompeo is scheduled to meet senior Saudi leaders and visit Saudi Aramco’s Khurais oil field, which was targeted in a missile attack in September that both the kingdom and the U.S. blame on Iran. Tehran denied involvement in that incident.
Pompeo will will hold talks with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as well as Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan.
Pompeo will hold talks with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as well as Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, State Department officials said.
“We’ll spend a lot of time talking about the security issues with the threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran in particular,” Pompeo told reporters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa before heading to Riyadh. Pompeo said the United States was “prepared to talk anytime” to Iran but emphasised that the Iranian regime has “got to fundamentally change their behavior.”
“The pressure campaign continues. It’s not just an economic pressure campaign, its diplomatic pressures, isolation through diplomacy as well,” he said, according to Arab News.
Pompeo last visited Riyadh on January 14th.
The lengthy visit to Riyadh is part of an overseas trip that started on February 13th, and will finish in neighboring Oman. The Secretary traveled to Riyadh from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he was from February 17-19.
