“It’s been a great three years here in the Eastern Province. I think we’ve accomplished a lot in terms of strengthening the US Saudi relationship. I’ve enjoyed living and working here very much. It’s been very rewarding,” said Dhahran’s US Consul General (CG) John Kincannon in his final interview with Arab News before leaving the Kingdom last week. Joe Kenny has been named as the incoming CG.
Kincannon became Principal Officer at the US Consulate in Dhahran in July 2005. A veteran of more than two decades in the US Foreign Service, Kincannon had previously been assigned to such posts as Sana’a, Islamabad and Kuwait. He was among a handful of diplomats who reopened the US Embassy in Kabul in December 2001 and before coming to Dhahran he had served as Office Director for Programs in the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the US State Department.
During Kincannon’s term of duty in Dhahran, the US Consulate grew substantially and now hosted 23 staff members, although assignment to the post is still unaccompanied, meaning Foreign Service officers cannot bring their families to live with them in the Kingdom. The Dhahran Consulate now has a fully-staffed commercial service with a commercial attaché working full time to promote stronger trade ties between the US and Saudi Arabia.
On the education front, a public affairs officer and student counselor have been assigned to assist students in the process of US university selection, to work to identify Saudis qualified for US cultural and education exchange programs and even to offer English scholarships for high school students in the Kingdom.
“Perhaps the highlight however of all the new services offered at the US Consulate in Dhahran, is the restoration of visa services this spring,” Kincannon said.
“The Dhahran Consulate had closed for visas in 1993. In 2005 at the Crawford Summit between President Bush and then Crown Prince Abdullah, it was decided that we would restart visa services here in Dhahran. It has been a challenge getting all the different pieces of that put together. We’ve had a very, very positive response here in the Eastern Province where we unfortunately have waiting lists that are months long at this point. People are eager to get visas.”
The US CG noted that the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the US has strengthened considerably.
“Obviously in the wake of the Sept. 11 events in the US there was a need particularly to look at the visa situation between the two countries to ensure the safety and security of people in both countries.
One of the best bits of news is the fact that travel by Saudis to the US this summer has returned basically to pre-Sept. 11 levels,” Kincannon advised. “There’s also a growing volume of trade between the two countries. The US continues to be the largest foreign direct investor in Saudi Arabia constituting about twenty-five percent of all foreign direct investment in the Kingdom. There are also many, many American firms working here in joint ventures with Saudi partners. We are currently aware of 357 different projects going on in different cities in the Kingdom with a value of around $21.9 billion dollars.
New joint ventures have attracted major American corporations such as General Electric, Conoco Phillips and Dow Chemical.”
While it is clear that the relationship between the Kingdom and the US is flourishing, difficulties still remain. Saudi businessmen face hurdles not only at US border control points but also in being issued visas. Arab News spoke with a local businessman who purchases over $10 million in goods from the US annually and whose children are being educated at US universities, but who has been denied a US visa for the second year in a row. The reason for the visa denial has never been explained to him as the US has a policy of not providing such explanations. And the US is about to make changes to its Attorney General guidelines.
As of Oct. 1, FBI agents pursuing national security leads will be able to engage in surveillance and investigation of individuals without any evidence that a person has been involved in wrongdoing.
The FBI claims that race or religion would never be the sole factor for opening an investigation. It might be taken into account though when investigators scrutinize groups that draw their members from specific populations or, for instance if they followed leads about suspicious groups of Muslim men boarding an airplane.
The plan also would allow FBI agents to collect information in the US on behalf of foreign intelligence authorities, as long as their participation aligned with US interests. Despite these issues, Kincannon looks to the future for Muslims in the US with optimism.
“I’ve seen figures of three to four million Muslims living in the US. They are a very large and increasingly active community,” commented Kincannon. “One of the things that I have noted in my 23 years working in the Middle East and South Asia exclusively is the growing role that the Muslim community plays in American life. The President and Secretary of State now host Iftar parties in Ramadan.
The US Postal Service has issued Eid Mubarak postage stamps. The number of mosques in the United States has quadrupled over the last several decades. Muslims are an increasingly important part of American life and are recognized as an increasingly important part of the American cultural mosaic.”
As for Kincannon, his career US Foreign Service in the Middle East will continue. After spending time in the US with his parents and his son, he will be assigned to head a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kerbala, Iraq.
The task of the team is to work with the provincial authorities in Iraq to find ways to improve the daily life of Iraqi citizens through job creation, economic reconstruction and local development.
