Saudi Arabia signs cooperation agreements with Jordan and Turkey during

Amman/Ankara: Saudi Arabia has started preparations to diffuse the tensions prevailing with its allies before the US President embarks on the Middle East visit. The media has claimed that this is the reason behind the visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Jordan and Turkey.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman started his visit from Egypt on Monday. 14 bilateral cooperation agreements worth $7.7 billion were signed during the visit. After that, Crown Prince Mohammed proceeded to Jordan. Tensions have been brewing between Saudi and Jordan for the last few years. The visit of the Crown Prince becomes essential against this background. The cooperation between Saudi and the United States had become stronger during the tenure of former President Donald Trump. This had upset Jordan, the closest ally of Saudi in the Middle East. In the same year, reports of Prince Hamza, stepbrother of Jordanian King Abdullah-II, plotting a rebellion also had been received. Prince Hamza had even been placed under house arrest for some time. The Jordanian agencies had alleged that Saudi supported Prince Hamza’s rebellion. This strained the relations between Saudi and Jordan.

Against all this background, with this visit, Crown Prince Mohammed seems to have taken steps toward diffusing the tension between the two allies. During the meeting with King Abdullah-II, Crown prince Mohammed announced freeing the Saudi investment of $3 billion in Jordan, as declared earlier. At the same time, Saudi has indicated fresh investments in Jordan. King Abdullah-II also awarded the Saudi Crown Prince the highest Jordanian civilian honour.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Saudi Crown Prince reached Turkey after visiting Jordan. Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the Turkish capital Istanbul in 2018. Saudi Crown Prince had been accused of being behind the killing. Turkey had taken serious cognisance of the matter and had made serious allegations against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. This affected the relations between Saudi and Turkey. In the times after that, Turkish President Recep Erdogan fired rounds of criticism on Saudi, the leader of the Islamic world. The ambition of the Turkish President was to snatch the leadership position of the Islamic world from Saudi and the United Arab Emirates. This further increased the edge of Turkish criticism.

But at the beginning of this year, Turkish President Erdogan took steps to improve relations with a visit to Saudi. Saudi also is responding to the efforts. President Erdogan wants cooperation from Saudi and the Middle East countries to recover the Turkish economy. At the same time, Saudi needs cooperation from other countries to counter the pressure exerted by the United States to increase oil production. This seems to be the reason behind the visit of the Saudi Crown Prince to Egypt, Jordan and Turkey.