Obama attempts to ease anxiety in Saudi Arabia

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - President Barack Obama reassured King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Friday that the United States remained committed to strengthening the moderate opposition in the Syrian civil war, administration officials said.

But aides declined to reveal whether Obama and the king agreed to any significant expansion of the covert program to train and arm the Syrian opposition. Relations between the two countries have become strained in recent months, in part over Saudi frustration with the U.S. reluctance to provide arms that could end up in the hands of jihadi and extremists in Syria.

“The emergence of some more extremist elements within the opposition only reinforces the need to strengthen the more moderate opposition,” a senior administration official told reporters in Riyadh after a two-hour meeting at the king’s palatial desert compound. “We have been improving that coordination and planning with our partners and allies.”

Obama met with King Abdullah at the end of his week-long tour through Europe, which focused primarily on bolstering the European response to Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. In Saudi Arabia, the president shifted his focus to another region racked by conflict.

Officials said the face-toface meeting with King Abdullah was an opportunity to confront the perception of a serious split between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states have favored a greater effort to arm and train rebels who have taken up arms against Syrian President Bashar Assad. Last year, however, the White House abruptly shelved plans for a military strike after Assad agreed to a Russian proposal to get rid of his chemical-weapons arsenal.

In February, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, told Congress that Assad’s hold on power had strengthened, and Robert Ford, the recently retired envoy to Syria, said Assad’s government was likely to survive in the medium term.

The Saudi leaders also have expressed alarm at Obama’s diplomatic initiative with Iran to halt much of that country’s nuclear program, which they consider a serious threat to the region. Officials said Iran was a key topic of discussion between the president and the king.

U.S. officials described the perception of a rift between the two as overstated, and while conceding some differences in approach on Syria and Iran, they added that the meeting underlined the enduring alliance of the two countries.

While the tone of the administration’s comments Friday might have been welcomed by the Saudis, it remained unclear whether the Obama administration’s policy on Syria would make a significant difference on the battlefield, where the opposition has been struggling.

Benjamin Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said progress between Washington and Riyadh had been made in coordinating “who we’re providing assistance to and what types of assistance we’re providing.” But he said the United States was still worried about proposals to give the rebels shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles known as manpads.

“We have made clear that there are certain types of weapons, including manpads, that could pose a proliferation risk if introduced into Syria,” he said. “We continue to have those concerns.”

Egypt has been another point of contention between the United States and Saudi Arabia, which supported the Egyptian military’s ouster of Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s democratically elected president. Rhodes said the United States was concerned about the “shockingly large” number of death sentences recently handed down in Egypt.

Several groups had urged the president to raise the subject of the kingdom’s treatment of women and accusations of human-rights abuses. Officials said it did not come up at the meeting.

Front Section, Pages 7 on 03/29/2014

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