RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Secretary of State John Kerry and his Saudi counterpart, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, strongly denied any significant breach of the U.S.-Saudi relationship yesterday, while acknowledging differences on tactics, particularly over Syria.
Although he emphasized U.S. commitment to a negotiated settlement in Syria, Kerry said at a news conference with al-Faisal that the United States will “continue to support the opposition” fighting against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
“We will not stand idly by while Assad continues to use weapons enormously disproportionate to those in the possession of the opposition in order to kill ... women and children,” Kerry said.
Al-Faisal called Syria “the largest calamity that has befallen the world in the present millennium.” If that is not “a reason to intervene, to stop the bloodshed, I don’t know what is,” al-Faisal said.
Overriding his interpreter to speak in fluent English, al-Faisal continued: “If one is making a moral choice to intervene or not to intervene, what is that choice going to be? Do I let the tragedy continue, or do I help if I can?”
Not only are thousands of people being killed, al-Faisal said, but Syria’s rich cultural heritage is being destroyed.
Kerry also met with King Abdullah II. Kerry said before the visit that he wanted to “make sure that the Saudi Arabian-U.S. relationship is on track.”
“The Saudis are very, very important to all of these things,” Kerry said during a stop at the U.S. embassy. “The Saudis are sort of the senior player, if you will, in the Arab world. ... The Saudis have an ability to be able to influence a lot of the things that we also care about and we work together on.”
Kerry’s visit was hastily appended to a northern Africa trip after the Saudis became increasingly public in their disapproval of the Obama administration’s cautious stance toward Syria’s civil war, its negotiations with Iran and its failure to fully support the Egyptian military that in the summer overthrew an elected civilian government.