Not all state visits achieve the same end. Some open new chapters in relations between countries — as did those last year to India and China by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah. Others are a mark of existing close ties. The current state visit by King Abdullah to the United Kingdom falls into the latter category. There is a deep and abiding relationship between the two kingdoms — hardly surprising given that those ties are the oldest of Saudi Arabia’s international ties; the UK was the first foreign power to recognize King Abdul Aziz and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The relationship is manifested in the strong economic ties between the two — Saudi Arabia is the UK’s largest trading partner in the Middle East and the UK is the Kingdom’s fifth largest trading partner and second largest investor after the US. The relationship is further manifested in the massive number of Saudis regularly visiting the UK either on vacation or for education, health care or business, or with second homes there, or living, working, and investing in the UK economy. For the traveling Saudi, London is a well-known destination, virtually a home away from home.
The relationship is demonstrated too in military ties and supplies and in the closeness of the two countries’ political views, notably on the Middle East, where the UK has fully supported the king’s blueprint for Middle East peace, and on fighting international terrorism — although the UK, as the king said a couple of days ago, has much more to do. It is still too easy for international and homegrown potential terrorists to plot and scheme in the UK. The king’s concern is that intelligence supplied by Saudi Arabia prior to terror attacks in the UK was not acted upon. There are still problems.
But concerns about British intelligence will not undermine bonds that have remained constant in an ever-changing world. Nor will the occasional hiccup. The point is that when there have been such hiccups — only to be expected in such a long-standing relationship — the bonds of friendship have allowed them to be resolved quickly and forgotten.
Saudi Arabia is looking at new relationships, new friends, particularly in Asia, but not at the expense of existing relationships and old friends. The visit to the UK may not have been one of the first that the King undertook, not even the first to Europe. But it is still of major importance. It says that ties are strong — and will get stronger.
The agreements to be signed (on taxation, sports cooperation and vocational training) are hardly going to set the relationship ablaze, but there will be many more, perhaps not now, but they will come — not as a result of this trip, but because of the relationship which the state visit both symbolizes and deepens.
