{"id":74230,"date":"2025-05-13T16:11:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T11:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/?p=74230"},"modified":"2025-05-13T16:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T11:11:08","slug":"saudi-crown-prince-welcomes-trump-in-riyadh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/world\/saudi-crown-prince-welcomes-trump-in-riyadh\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Crown Prince welcomes Trump in Riyadh"},"content":{"rendered":"
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RIYADH: US President Donald Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia Tuesday on what he called a \u201chistoric\u201d tour of the Middle East that will mix urgent diplomacy on Gaza with huge business deals.<\/p>\n

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman warmly greeted Trump as he stepped off Air Force One at King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital and kicked off his Middle East tour.<\/p>\n

The two leaders then retreated to a grand hall at the Riyadh airport, where Trump and his aides were served traditional Arabic coffee by waiting attendants wearing ceremonial gun-belts.<\/p>\n

Royal Saudi Air Force F-15s provided an honorary escort for Air Force One as it approached the kingdom\u2019s capital. Trump and Prince Mohammed also were taking part in a lunch at the Royal Court, gathering with guests and aides.<\/p>\n

Later, the crown prince will fete Trump with a formal dinner. Trump is also slated to take part Tuesday in a US-Saudi investment conference.<\/p>\n

Air Force One took off on a journey that will include visits to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates \u2014 and possibly talks in Turkiye on the Ukraine war.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s war on Hamas in Gaza will hang heavy over the first major tour of Trump\u2019s second term \u2014 but in one sign of progress, US-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander was handed over to the Red Cross just as the president boarded his plane.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s big news,\u201d Trump said at the White House shortly before departing. \u201cHe\u2019s coming home to his parents, which is really great news. They thought he was dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has in recent weeks seemed to cool on his efforts to end the Gaza war \u2014 despite boasting before taking office that he would be able to bring the conflict to a swift end.<\/p>\n

He has also been increasingly at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Gaza, as well as over strikes on Yemen\u2019s Houthis and on how to handle Iran\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n

Trump said there were \u201cvery good things happening\u201d on talks between Washington and Tehran over Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions \u2014 though he added that Iran \u201ccan\u2019t have a nuclear weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US president said that he hoped for more developments on Gaza during his trip to the Gulf, noting that his tour involved \u201cthree primary countries\u201d in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that we\u2019re going to have other hostages released too,\u201d he said when asked if he expected further progress toward a ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave.<\/p>\n

Hamas asked Trump to \u201ccontinue efforts\u201d to end the war after freeing hostage Alexander, while Netanyahu said he would send mediators to Qatar on Tuesday for further negotiations.<\/p>\n

Qatar has played a key role as a middleman in talks on ending the war.<\/p>\n

Trump\u00a0said he could change his plans and fly to Istanbul on Thursday if talks between Russia and Ukraine happen there and make progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know where I\u2019m going to be at that particular point, I\u2019ll be someplace in the Middle East. But I would, if I thought it would be helpful,\u201d Trump told reporters Monday.<\/p>\n

Trump added that he thought both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin could attend \u2014 raising the prospect of a landmark summit.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s Middle East tour will start in Saudi Arabia \u2014 the same place he began his debut overseas trip in his first term in 2017, and memorably posed over a glowing orb with the leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

But on that occasion, he also visited Israel, whereas this time it is not on the itinerary.<\/p>\n

His decision to once more bypass traditional Western allies to visit the Gulf states underscores their pivotal geopolitical role \u2014 as well as his own business ties there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RIYADH: US President Donald Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia Tuesday on what he called a \u201chistoric\u201d tour of the Middle East that will mix urgent diplomacy on Gaza with huge business deals. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman warmly greeted Trump as he stepped off Air Force One at King Khalid International Airport in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":74235,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10125,427,8062,184],"class_list":["post-74230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-gaza","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-saudi-crown-prince","tag-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74236,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74230\/revisions\/74236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}