RIYADH, 24 April 2007 — The UK has a new ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The position of William Patey CMG as ambassador became official on Sunday after rapid processing of his credentials by the Saudi Royal Court.
“You only become official when you present your credentials to the foreign minister, which I did on Saturday,” he said. “It was very kind of the Saudi authorities to arrange things for the day after I got into the country — that is unusually quick.” He guessed that they were probably aware of a series of imminent events over which an ambassador should normally preside.
Previously deputy head of mission in the Kingdom for three years from 1995, Patey is an eminently approachable straight-speaking Scot and a fluent Arabic speaker who has considerable Middle Eastern experience. He left the Kingdom in 1998 to take up a position with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), the UN weapons inspection organization in Iraq under Richard Butler. After the attack on Iraq, UNSCOM’s future became uncertain and Patey returned to London to become the head of the Middle East Department where he was until 2002. From there he went to Sudan as ambassador until 2005. He was in Khartoum during the negotiations to finalize the successful “comprehensive peace agreement.”
“Unfortunately that was overshadowed and overtaken by the events in Darfur,” he said. “We negotiated a peace agreement between north and south and were trying to get aid into Darfur as well. It was an interesting time.” Before coming to the Kingdom, his most recent posting until late 2006 was ambassador to Iraq.
During the years since 1998 when he left the Kingdom, he visited the country once. He said that he noticed changes in the Kingdom only a few hours after returning - especially the striking changes in Riyadh’s skyline. “When I was leaving, the land for the Kingdom Center had just been cleared and the foundations for the Faisaliyah Tower had just been poured,” he recalled.
“It’s good to be back here,” he mused. Describing the style of his predecessor (Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles) as “pretty get up and at’em.” He went on: “It’s very much the same with me. I like to get things done and get on with things.”
He acknowledged that Cowper-Coles work had strengthened the foundations of a strong relationship between Saudi Arabia and the UK. “It struck me in my briefings before coming here that the relationship has got stronger and deeper.” He commented that the two countries had similar interests on many different levels. Two areas that he mentioned were combating terrorism — which threatens the Kingdom as much as it does Britain — and interests in the Gulf region.
“We also have shared interests in seeing a stable Iraq and finding solutions to the Palestine problem, decent governance in Lebanon and peace in Sudan. There are many shared interests here, and that is a good place from which to start,” he said.
Commenting on what he hopes for, he said that he would like to see the Two Kingdoms project go ahead, which includes focus on communication between the two countries aiming to represent the culture and history of each to the other and an increase in inter-parliamentary dialogue.
He also aims to build on the work started by his predecessor and see British companies get back to a leading position in the market. “British companies have a good position here, but I think we could argue that they do not have a leading one.” He said that with the massive ongoing construction programs in the Kingdom, he saw opportunities for British companies to get a good share.
Patey also feels that as the UK is less nationalistic about inward investment by foreign companies than many other countries, there are opportunities to be developed for Saudi investors in the UK. “They would find that there would be a welcome in the hillsides, as we say in Scotland,” he chuckled.
In a related development, a temporary consul general, Geoffrey Cole, who served previously in Qatar, arrived last Tuesday to provide continuity in consular services after the recent departure of Gerard Russell.
