Russian President’s state visit to Saudi Arabia

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Riyadh on Monday on his first visit since 2007, and was welcomed to Al-Yamamah Palace by Saudi King Salman as well as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Putin received all the trappings of a state visit, with a mounted guard escorting his limousine to King Salman’s Al-Yamamah palace in Riyadh on his first visit to the kingdom since 2007.

Riyadh Governor Prince Faisal bin Bandar earlier personally welcomed the Russian leader as he disembarked from his aircraft at King Khalid International Airport.

An official welcoming ceremony was held in honor of Putin and various agreements were signed between the governments of Saudi Arabia and Russia including an oil cooperation pact.

Riyadh has hosted talks between the President of Russia and King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia. The talks focused, among other things, on coordinating measures to stabilise oil prices, as well as the situation in Syria and the Persian Gulf region, and the Palestinian-Israeli settlement.

In addition, the leaders discussed building up their multi-dimensional cooperation in various areas, such as energy, agriculture, industry and military-technical cooperation, as well as cultural and humanitarian exchanges.

The parties had a detailed exchange of views on current international issues, with an emphasis on the developments in the Middle East and North Africa.

Following the visit, a package of bilateral documents was signed, including both interagency and commercial agreements. The sides signed the Charter of Cooperation of Oil Producing Countries and the programme for high level Russian-Saudi strategic cooperation of the Joint Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technological Cooperation. Other documents concern cooperation in manned cosmonautics and the GLONASS global navigation satellite system, energy, culture, healthcare, mass communications, tourism, mutual visa facilitation agreements, encouragement and protection of capital investment and mutual expansion of agricultural and food exports. A number of documents regulate specific issues of joint investment and joint projects.

During his state visit to Saudi Arabia, Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud attended the first meeting of the Russian-Saudi Economic Council.

The President emphasised that he considers Saudi Arabia to be one of Russia’s leading economic partners, and believes that the Russian-Saudi Economic Council offers a great opportunity for a direct dialogue between business representatives of both countries.

The President noted successful bilateral cooperation in energy, industry, transport, banking, digital technology and space exploration.

In addition, Vladimir Putin considers cooperation in agriculture to be important. He said agreements on expanding distribution of Russian agricultural products to Saudi Arabia have already been reached.

During the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud they discussed, in part, bilateral cooperation in the world energy market.

“Our cooperation is aimed at promoting peace and security, and stabilising the world energy market. And it is producing good, positive results,” Vladimir Putin emphasised during the conversation.

The President of Russia thanked the Crown Prince for his efforts to carry out these joint plans.