Rice to start US -Saudi strategic dialog
Saudi Arabia-USA, Politics, 11/4/2005

US Secretary Of State Condoleezza Rice's coming visit to Saudi Arabia will start a strategic dialog on bilateral and regional issues between the two countries, Sean McCormack, Spokesman of the Department Of State said yesterday.

McCormack said "it is a broad-ranging discussion about a variety of different issues: security, advancing greater freedoms and political reform, economic issues, regional issues."

McCormack added "So that will be -- that's sort of the general playing field of the discussion with the Saudis and the Strategic Dialogue. This is the first meeting of that Strategic Dialogue -- will take place between Secretary Rice and the Saudi Foreign Minister. There will be other meetings under the rubric of that Strategic Dialogue that I would anticipate will continue at working levels as well, once this has been launched."

McCormack said "In Bahrain, she will attend the Forum for the Future. The Forum is part of our ongoing efforts to empower people in the region as they seek to reform and improve their lives and better their futures. A big part of the Forum for the Future is to serve as a mechanism to create a stable lasting mechanism where civil society groups from across the region can come together and to discuss ways that they can advance their agenda of greater political freedoms, political reforms throughout the region and in their individual countries and also to bring together governments with those civil society groups."

Previous Stories:
  Saudi Arabia holds unofficial talks with NATO   (10/6/2005)
  Hughes commends Saudi Arabia, calls it to honor non Muslims   (9/28/2005)
  Saudi FM accuses US of partitioning Iraq, handing it over to Iran   (9/22/2005)

Please add a link on your webiste pointing to ArabicNews.com and bookmark ArabicNews.com & subscribe to our daily email news bulletin.

Search