New Delhi: President Obama heads to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to offer condolences to the family of the late King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and meet with his successor.
Obama cut short his visit to India, scrapping plans to visit the Taj Mahal on Tuesday, in order to pay his respects to the late Saudi monarch. Obama will fly to Riyadh after a speech on the future of the U.S.-India relationship.
The president will meet with King Salman bin Abdulaziz, who succeeded Abdullah, who died last week at age 90.
Obama will be joined by a large U.S. delegation as America pays its respect to the Saudi royal family in its time of grief. The president and King Salman will introduce their delegations at Erga Palace. The two men will then hold a bilateral meeting and have dinner.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who is ending a week-long trip overseas, will join the president in Riyadh. He is flying early Tuesday morning to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where he will meet up with a delegation comprised of a broad swath of the American political and national security establishment. The group coming from Washington includes current and former members of Congress and national security advisers, as well as previous secretaries of state. They will continue to Riyadh together to join Obama.
The large and high-level delegation is a demonstration of Saudi Arabia’s importance to Washington. Saudi Arabia is part of the coalition fighting Islamist militants who want to create an Islamic caliphate in Syria and Iraq. A son of King Salman, Prince Khaled bin Salman, is a pilot who was photographed last year in the cockpit of his Tornado jet after conducting air strikes against extremist positions in Syria.
Saudi Arabia is grappling with the rise of Islamic extremism and terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the collapse of the government in neighboring Yemen. The Saudis are a crucial part of the international coalition battling the terrorist group that calls itself the Islamic State, and they have sent warplanes to fight the group in Iraq and Syria.
White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said Obama made the decision to go to Riyadh principally “to mark this transition in leadership and to pay respects to the family and to the people of Saudi Arabia.”
The two leaders will discuss a range of issues, including Yemen, Iran and the campaign against the Islamic State, he said.
The trip will be “a chance for us to make sure that we’re in good alignment going forward where we have overlapping interests,” he said.
