US President George W. Bush greets Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah after receiving the King Abdul Aziz Medallion of the First Order in Riyadh on Monday. (Reuters) RIYADH, 15 January 2008 — US President George W. Bush arrived here yesterday on his first visit to the Kingdom. His talks with Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah are expected to focus on Middle East peace and Iran’s controversial nuclear program in addition to the situation in Iraq and Lebanon.

Nearing the final stages of his most extensive Gulf tour, Bush flew in from Dubai. King Abdullah embraced Bush at the foot of his Air Force One presidential jet and they walked down a red carpet together, flanked by a military honor guard, as music played in the background.

The president’s first visit to the Kingdom was timed with a likely notification to Congress in Washington of a planned $20 billion arms deal with the Gulf states.

The US leader landed just hours after French President Nicolas Sarkozy — who has offered to share civilian nuclear technology with Muslim countries — ended a visit to the Kingdom.

King Abdullah and Bush held the first round of talks at the king’s Riyadh palace. They will meet again today at the monarch’s ranch near the capital before Bush leaves for Egypt tomorrow at the conclusion of his weeklong tour.

Bush has used his Gulf tour to mobilize the support of regional leaders against Iran. “The United States is strengthening our long-standing security commitments with our friends in the Gulf — and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late,” the president said in a speech in Abu Dhabi. Bush wants American allies in the region to help revive US-backed peace efforts between Israel and Palestine.

Saudi Arabia is considered a lynchpin for any broader Israeli-Arab reconciliation as Bush presses the Israelis and the Palestinians to secure a peace deal before he leaves office in January 2009. But the effort has drawn heavy skepticism.

“All agree that it is a difficult problem that needs to be addressed and, at this point, pursued in a diplomatic fashion,” Stephen Hadley, Bush’s national security adviser, told reporters when asked how Gulf leaders had reacted to the president’s comments on Iran.

Analysts say there are growing signs that America’s Arab allies prefer to engage Iran, as Saudi Arabia did, with an invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to perform Haj. He was the first Iranian president to receive an official invitation to the annual Muslim pilgrimage.

Bush’s trip is partly aimed at clearing confusion among Arab allies about a US intelligence report that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003, contradicting Bush’s earlier assertions that Tehran was actively pursuing a bomb.

Visiting the Gulf region after talks in Israel and the West Bank, Bush asked Arab allies to diplomatically and financially support Palestinian leaders involved in peace talks and to reach out to Israel.

King Abdullah is the architect of the new Arab Peace Initiative, which offers normal Arab relations with Israel if the Jewish state withdraws from all Arab territories it occupied in the 1967 war.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Hadley said the State Department was expected to announce later today that it had notified US lawmakers of its intention to go ahead with the regional defense package. He declined to provide details. The official announcement kicks off a 30-day review period during which lawmakers can move to block the sale of arms.
The administration last year proposed supplying Gulf states with some $20 billion in new weapons, including Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb kits.

The plan has angered Israel’s backers in Washington but Israeli security sources said on Sunday that the United States would provide the Jewish state better “smart bombs” than those it plans to sell Saudi Arabia under the regional defense plan.

Bush’s tour has failed to impress the Arab press. Al-Watan newspaper said Bush needed to listen more closely to the Saudi people. “Saudi Arabia has constantly drawn the attention of successive American administrations — and particularly that of George W. Bush — to the errors that they have made in the Middle East,” it said.

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