Trump feted on Saudi visit

Talks tout closer ties, new start in Mideast

President Donald Trump joins in a traditional Saudi sword dance as part of his grand welcome Saturday at Murabba Palace in Riyadh before the start of a royal dinner.
President Donald Trump joins in a traditional Saudi sword dance as part of his grand welcome Saturday at Murabba Palace in Riyadh before the start of a royal dinner.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- President Donald Trump, in the first stop of his maiden trip abroad, received a regal welcome Saturday in Saudi Arabia, feted by the wealthy kingdom as he aims to forge strong alliances against terrorism.

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AP/EVAN VUCCI

President Donald Trump bows Saturday as Saudi King Salman presents him with the kingdom’s highest civilian honor, the Collar of Abdulaziz Al Saud.

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AP/EVAN VUCCI

Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, arrive Saturday at the Royal Court Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The visit to the kingdom's capital kicked off Trump's first foreign trip as president, a five-stop swing that will take him through the Middle East and into Europe. He is the only American president to make Saudi Arabia -- or any Muslim-majority nation -- his first overseas stop.

After an overnight flight, the president was greeted at the airport Saturday by King Salman, which was notable given that the monarch did not show up last year to welcome then-President Barack Obama on his final visit to Saudi Arabia.

Trump descended the steps alongside first lady Melania Trump, who wore a black pantsuit and gold belt but did not cover her hair in the ultra-conservative kingdom, in keeping with the traditions of Western delegations.

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As Trump and the 81-year-old king, who was aided by a cane, walked along the red carpet, military jets swept the sky, leaving a red, white and blue trail. "I'm very happy to see you," Salman told Trump, who responded that it was a "great honor" to be visiting the kingdom.

During a ceremony at the grand Saudi Royal Court, Salman awarded Trump the Collar of Abdulaziz al Saud, the kingdom's highest civilian honor.

Trump bent down so the king could place the gold medal around his neck. Saudi Arabia has previously bestowed the honor on Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister Theresa May and Obama.

Trump's warm welcome reflected the degree to which Saudi Arabia had become disillusioned with Obama. The Saudis deeply distrusted Obama's overtures to Iran and were frustrated by his restrained approach to the Syrian civil war.

Trump made no substantial remarks on his first day abroad and spent most of his time shuttling between opulent palace ballrooms with the king.

The two were overheard discussing natural resources and arms, and Salman bemoaned the destruction caused by Syria's war.

Salman was overheard telling Trump that "Syria, too, used to be one of the most advanced countries. We used to get our professors from Syria. They served our kingdom. Unfortunately, they, too, brought destruction to their own country. You could destroy a country in mere seconds, but it takes a lot of effort."

The president is being trailed on the trip by a large number of advisers, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon. Trump's son-in law, Jared Kushner, and daughter Ivanka, both senior advisers, were also part of the official delegation.

What emerged as a display of affection between the two governments was a marked contrast to years of growing estrangement under Obama.

"This is the beginning of a turning point in the relationship between the United States and the Arab and Islamic world," Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir proclaimed alongside Tillerson.

Trump's visit, al-Jubeir said, "begins to change the conversation" with the Islamic world "from one of enmity to one of partnership."

Trump landed in Riyadh besieged by the fallout from his firing of FBI Director James Comey and by more revelations about the federal investigations into possible ties between his election campaign and Russia.

Songs and dance

As Trump arrived at Murabba Palace for a royal dinner, hundreds of Saudi men in long, white robes danced the Ardha, a traditional sword dance that is performed on Saudi National Day and in honor of special guests.

Trump, grinning broadly at the festivities, waded in and took a few obligatory dips in the dance. Several of Trump's male aides, along with Salman, participated with more enthusiasm. Tillerson and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross raised swords and linked arms with Saudis, chanting to the beat of feathered drums, while Priebus, Bannon and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn also laughed and swayed.

American country music star Toby Keith performed at a men's-only concert in Riyadh on Saturday night, coinciding with Trump's visit. As Trump and Salman were driven in a golf cart around the palace after dinner, the president trained his eyes on a jumbo screen playing the live concert.

Beyond the closed meetings, the desert capital was decked out for a celebration. As Riyadh baked in triple-digit heat under a pall of dust, American and Saudi flags flew from light poles. The facade of the Ritz-Carlton, the palace-like hotel where Trump is staying, was illuminated with photographs of the two leaders and the red, white, blue and green of the two nations' flags.

The ebullient welcome reflected a kingdom eager to rekindle its relationship with the United States, and to use the visit to declare and solidify its own leadership role in the Muslim world.

Al-Jubeir, in the news conference with Tillerson, heaped praise on Trump, saying the president had the "vision," "strength" and "decisiveness," in the estimation of the Saudi leadership, to bring peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. The foreign minister went on to borrow one of Trump's favorite campaign slogans, saying that a new relationship between the U.S. and the Arab world could "drain the swamps from which extremism and terrorism emanates."

In their private talks, Trump and Salman discussed their shared view of the threat from Iran.

However, there was public silence from the U.S. delegation on the issue of human rights in Saudi Arabia, which has imprisoned peaceful critics of the government and has sharply restricted the rights of women. Ahead of the visit, Trump's advisers said the president did not intend to "lecture" his hosts.

Trump's address

Today, Trump and the king are to join more than 50 regional leaders for meetings focused on fighting the Islamic State group and other extremists. The president is to give the signature speech of his trip, an address that aides view as counter to Obama's 2009 speech in Egypt to the Muslim world. Trump has criticized Obama's remarks as too apologetic for U.S. actions in the region.

One senior White House official said the president hoped to "reset" both the global fight against Islamic terrorism and his own reputation for intolerance of Muslims, which was fueled by his campaign call for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." After taking office, Trump signed an executive order to temporarily block visitors from some predominantly Muslim countries, but courts have blocked it pending a legal review.

Trump's royal hosts, whose country was not among those covered by the travel ban, have ignored that history in the interests of working with a U.S. president who seems to share their goals and will not lecture them about repression of women or minority Shiites in Saudi Arabia, or about its conduct in the war in Yemen.

Trump planned to urge unity in the fight against radicalism in the Muslim world, casting the challenge as a "battle between good and evil" and appealing to Arab leaders to "drive out the terrorists from your places of worship," according to a draft of the speech obtained by The Associated Press.

The official delegations on Saturday discussed issues including oil, Iran and Syria. Saudi Arabia is part of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State, but on Saturday, The Washington Post reported that documents show the country helped block a Trump administration proposal to impose sanctions against a Saudi branch of the terrorist group.

The plan to add the Islamic State's Saudi affiliate to a United Nations list of terrorist groups was quietly killed two weeks ago in a bureaucratic maneuver at the U.N. Security Council, records show. U.S. officials familiar with the move said the Saudis objected to the public acknowledgment of the existence of a Saudi offshoot of the terrorist group inside the kingdom.

"They don't want to admit they have an issue in their backyard," said a U.S. official familiar with the events, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

The terrorist group in 2014 declared the existence of a separate Saudi province, with its own cadre of Saudi operatives seeking to overthrow the monarchy. The group has since claimed responsibility for several attacks inside the country, including a suicide bombing at a mosque in 2015 that killed 15 people.

The Trump administration's proposal to add the "Islamic State in Saudi Arabia" to a list of U.N.-sanctioned terrorist groups was formally blocked on May 5 by Senegal and Egypt, two members of the U.N. Security Council. Egyptian diplomats explained to their U.S. counterparts that they acted at the behest of Saudi Arabia, according to U.S. officials and internal emails describing the exchange. It was the second time in a year that Saudi officials intervened to prevent the Islamic State affiliate from being added to the U.N. terrorist list.

A senior Saudi official, speaking by telephone from Riyadh, acknowledged his government's opposition to the Trump administration's plan. He said formal recognition of a Saudi branch of the Islamic State would have been both unfair to Saudi Arabia and an exaggeration of the cell's significance.

Information for this article was contributed by Julie Pace, Jonathan Lemire and Jon Gambrell of The Associated Press; by Michael D. Shear, Peter Baker and Ben Hubbard of The New York Times; and by Philip Rucker, Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick of The Washington Post.

A Section on 05/21/2017

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