Biden arrives in Saudi Arabia after kingdom opens airspace to flights from Israel

President Joe Biden on Friday arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for two days of meetings with Saudi officials and leaders from across the Gulf region, less than one day after the kingdom announced it would open its’ airspace to all carriers, including those departing from Israel.

Mr Biden arrived aboard Air Force One at 5.53 pm local time, just under two hours after taking off from Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. The president’s plane was the second-ever flight to travel directly from Israel to Saudi Arabia, the first such flight having been made by a charter plane carrying the White House press corps several hours earlier.

Saudi Arabia and Israel have never recognised each other and do not have diplomatic relations, and the kingdom has never before allowed any flight from Israel to transit through its airspace. That longstanding prohibition was lifted on Thursday after the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation said the country's airspace would henceforth be open to all air carriers in line with international treaties.

The announcement that Saudi Arabia would allow flights from Israel came after months of US-led negotiations between the kingdom, Israel, and Egypt which led to the resolution of a long-standing dispute over a pair of Red Sea islands.

Mr Biden is set to spend the remainder of his day on Friday meeting with Saudi leaders, including King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The Saudi leg of Mr Biden’s trip has attracted no shortage of controversy in light of statements he made during his 2020 presidential campaign regarding his desire to treat the kingdom as a “pariah” over its human rights record and the crown prince’s role in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Kashoggi.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the visit to Saudi Arabia was part of Mr Biden’s strategy for “ensuring that there is not a vacuum in the Middle East for China and Russia to fill,” and to show that the US intends to play a “critical role” in the “strategically vital region”.

The president’s arrival in Jeddah also comes as Americans have been reeling from skyrocketing inflation, which the White House says is largely driven by high oil prices.

Mr Sullivan, who spoke with reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Jeddah, said Mr Biden will discuss “energy security” matters at his meetings with Saudi officials, as well as leaders from the “GCC plus three” nations who will convene on Saturday — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman , Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, plus Iraq and Egypt.

But Mr Sullivan said the White House does not expect an immediate increase in petroleum output as a result of Mr Biden’s conversations, though he added that administration officials remain “hopeful” that “Opec Plus” — the 13-members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and a group of non-Opec oil exporters led by Russia — would take “additional actions” to boost output “in the coming weeks”.