Brussels, 28/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday evening 27 July in Riyadh, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, asserted that the European Union was ready to strengthen its relations with Saudi Arabia.
The High Representative described her visit to Saudi Arabia as “the beginning of very strong cooperation”. She also said that she was “sure” that the EU and Saudi Arabia would be able to build “fantastic cooperation… over the next few months”. During a press conference with the Saudi foreign affairs Minister, Adel Bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, the High Representative stated that they had deep relations and that the Europeans were ready to strengthen these relations even more.
Mogherini explained that she had had discussions with the Saudi minister on how best to structure relations between the EU and Saudi Arabia, such as by tackling the question of visas, cooperation against terrorism, energy security, new trade opportunities and relations between civil societies.
This meeting also provided an opportunity for looking at a number of regional challenges such as the conflicts in Yemen, Iraq and Libya. The High Representative therefore emphasised the fact that their joint work towards finding a way towards political transition in Syria and fighting effectively against the terrorist Daesh organisation constituted the “top priority” on European and Gulf country agendas.
Mogherini was aware of the countries in this region's concerns about the Iranian nuclear programme and she sought to provide reassurances to the Saudis about the agreement recently obtained in Vienna between Iran and the “3+3” group (US, Russia, China, France, United Kingdom and Germany) (see EUROPE 11359). She emphasised that this was a “strong and solid” agreement.
According to the High Representative, moving away from confrontation between Iran and its neighbours towards cooperation could possibly open the way to resolving the majority of crises in the region. She asserted that “we, as Europeans, will invest all our political capital to try and facilitate the change of paradigm to pass from confrontation to cooperation in this region”. On several occasions she repeated the fact that implementation of the agreement on the Iranians nuclear programme would help to build trust.
Mogherini also said that she considered that Saudi Arabia had a “key” role to play in the Middle Eastern peace process, “in particular in reviving the Arab Peace Initiative that could be an important element in the way forward to restarting the process that at the moment is not in place”. (Camille-Cerise Gessant)