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| Putin and Abdullah in Riyadh in 2007 and the sort of Russian arms sought by the Saudis |
Russian
President Vladimir Putin’s phone call to Saudi King Abdullah on Sunday (after
the crackup in U.S.-Saudi relations) has revived talk of the oil-rich kingdom
offering to buy billions of dollars worth of arms from Moscow.
That’s the view of diplomatic sources quoted by Political
Consultant/Analyst Nasr
al-Majali, writing today
for Elaph news portal.
Saudi businessman, journalist and author Othman al-Omeir, a former
editor-in-chief of the Saudi newspaper of records Asharq Alawsat owns Elaph.
A statement by the Kremlin said the Russian President and Saudi
monarch on Sunday discussed international issues over the phone.
During the
conversation requested by the Russian side, the two leaders focused on the
Syrian conflict and Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the statement said without
elaborating.
Western countries suspect Iran of using its
nuclear program to develop atomic weapons, a claim
Iran has consistently denied. Tehran claims it needs atomic technology for
producing electricity, although it has some of the world’s largest reserves of
oil and gas.
Majali quotes diplomats and various Russian sources as saying the
arms deal in the making would include such Russian military hardware for Saudi
Arabia as:
- T-90 battle tanks
- Mi-17, Mi-26 and Mi-35 attack helicopters
- BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles
- S-400 surface-to-air missiles
- Pantsir-S1, a short to medium range ground based air defense system, wheeled, tracked or stationary.
According to Simon Henderson, director of the Gulf and
Energy Policy Program at The Washington Institute, if Riyadh concludes a major arms deal with Moscow
in return for reduced Russian backing of Syria’s Assad regime, it will come at
the expense of U.S. influence in the Middle East and possibly across the world.
From the moment it was
announced, the July 31 Moscow meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin
and Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan was clearly of political
significance. The "long and serious" discussions between the two
reportedly lasted four hours and left the Saudis "in a positive
mood."
According to an August 7
Reuters report, Riyadh offered to buy $15 billion worth of weapons from Moscow
and avoid threatening Russia's position as the main natural gas supplier to Europe,
in return for Russia easing its strong support for the Assad regime and
agreeing not to block any future UN Security Council resolution on Syria.
According to unidentified diplomats quoted in the story, the Russian response
has so far been inconclusive, though Moscow reportedly pressured Damascus to
allow [the] visit by a UN mission investigating suspected chemical weapons use.
The Saudi diplomatic push
shows Riyadh's determination to force the Assad regime's collapse, which the
kingdom hopes will be a strategic defeat for Iran, its regional rival in both
diplomatic and religious terms. It also reflects Riyadh's belief, shared by its
Gulf Arab allies, that U.S. diplomacy on Syria lacks the necessary imagination,
commitment, and energy to succeed…
