What’s next in U.S.-Saudi relations

well good afternoon ladies and gentlemen I said I'm a nickel on behalf of everyone at the Brookings Institution we welcome you to this Alan and Jane batca International leaders forum and we welcome you to the institution as well in a few moments I'll ask to speak the individual that you came to see this afternoon His Excellency uttal al Jabar the minister of foreign affairs for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and we're deeply honoured Minister that you would join us today as most of you know he's visiting Washington DC this week along with His Royal Highness the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and we're very grateful for his willingness to spend some time with us this afternoon and to speak to us today about some of the key issues that we face in this region together minister al Jabar has been Saudi Arabia's foreign minister since April of 2015 and in this role he's been at the center of many of the most pressing issues facing the Middle East in recent years and I'll note in particular that during my appointment as the US special envoy to the global coalition to counter the so-called Islamic state I recall with great pleasure and warmth the minister's strong support to the coalition representing the kingdom and his strong support to me as the special envoy as we build a coalition together to defeat the Islamic state prior to taking his current role Minister al Jabar served as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States a position he's held for nine years he's very well known to DC and counted as a friend among many of us in this city following his remarks today Minister al Jabar will sit with our current vice president and director of foreign policy here at the Brookings Institution for a more in-depth discussion and after their conversation we'll open the floor to questions with many other matters to attend to we appreciate the minister taking his time and a very busy and full schedule here in Washington DC a schedule that I believe will strengthen the relationship between United States in the kingdom but also a schedule that will ensure continued peace and stability on our behalf of both of our countries so ladies and gentlemen if you will please join me in welcoming the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia minister Adel al-jubeir thank you John for the kind introduction and I'm honored that you invited me to speak here today and so I will try to make my comments short and see what we can accomplish in the Q&A session the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States have been allies for all eight decades now they have seen the becoming and breaking of many storms in the 1950s and 60s we work together to defeat radicalism emanating from NASA and other revolutionary states in the Middle East in the 70s and 80s we worked together to roll back the Soviet Union we were able to switch Egypt from the rough Soviet camp to the Western camp we did the same thing in Somalia in the 1960s in 70 sorry we pushed back against Soviet encroachment towards the Gulf we worked together in Afghanistan and we prevailed and the 1990 of course everybody remembers the invasion of Kuwait and the liberation of Kuwait by a coalition of over 30 countries that was put together by the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia today we are facing numerous challenges in our region we are facing extremism and terrorism we are facing a crisis in Syria we are facing working together to support Iraq and maintaining its unity and helping Iraq rebuild the nation after many years of devastation we're working together to contain Iran we are working together to support the legitimate government of Yemen we are working together to see what we can do about Libya we are partners and allies along with a number of European countries in supporting the g5 countries of the Sahel as they take on terrorism and extremism in the form of Boko Haram we are working together against piracy in the middle we are working together against terror financing in in the Middle East and around the globe and so we have a full agenda of course I would be remiss if I didn't mention stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that's a tall agenda I always tell people other than these little problems we live in a wonderful neighborhood the the the the way we see the situation I'll just touch on some of the issues very briefly so that we can discuss them in more depth during the question/answer the situation in in Syria for example is a tragedy more than 500,000 people killed 12 million people displaced millions of refugees outside of Syria and we have a situation where we need to work on a political process that leads to the implementation of the Geneva 1 declaration and UN Security Council resolution 2216 so that a political process a transition period a new constitution elections and then with the objective of maintaining the territorial integrity of Syria and ensuring that there is a stable government that is representative of all Syrians it's a challenge because we have extremism we have terrorism we have different actors in Syria we have the Iranian influence in Syria we have the Shia militias in Syria but we're determined to continue to work with our partners to try to bring about an end to this conflict the Kingdom of Saudi air was one of the founding members of the international coalition to defeat Isis in Syria and Iraq our Air Force flew the second largest number of missions after the United States during in this effort we have prevailed thank God in Iraq and but but the effort in Syria is not over yet with regards to Iraq we have turned the corner in our relationship with Iraq we over the past year we have opened up consulates we have an embassy we have opened up land bridges bit border crossings between our two countries we have instituted commercial traffic airline traffic between the two countries we have estab a Coordinating Council between our two countries to institutionalize the relationship we've had numerous trade delegations go back and forth between the two countries we have intensified the level and the tempo of visits by senior officials from both countries and we have pledged 1.5 billion dollars to the reconstruction of Iraq at the pledging conference that was recently held in Kuwait we believe that Iraq has turned the corner and we see Iraq as a neighbor to us and we see Iraq as a partner of ours and so this is a this has been a tremendous success the conflict in Yemen remains it was a war that we didn't seek it was a war that we didn't want it was a war that was imposed on us we worked on removing president former president Saleh and establishing a transition government the Yemeni people came together in the National Dialogue of people of all walks of life they came up with a blueprint of what they wanted Yemen to be and then they were prepared preparing to write a constitution and this is when the Houthis a radical militia allied with Iran and Hezbollah stuck stuck they staged a coup they took over the government and they they chased the Yemeni president first they imprisoned him in his house and when he escaped they chased him to Aden and they circled the palace and he asked for assistance and we responded under Article 51 of the UN Charter and we responded under Security Council resolution 2216 put together a coalition of 12 countries that sought to prevent the takeover of Yemen by this radical militia which was now in possession of an Air Force and ballistic missiles and we have always said from the beginning that the war that the problem in Yemen can only be resolved politically on the basis of UN Security Council 22:16 on the basis of the GCC initiative and the outcomes of the Yemeni national dialogue and that still remains our position we have had there have been many many talks held between the Yemeni parties agreements were reached and the Houthis did not implement one single one of them every time people accept a an agreement there is no implementation and so the war continues we now have a situation in Yemen where after the murder of President Saleh the Houthis are isolated the major political parties in Yemen are coming together and there politically the Houthis are isolated we have opened up the ports of Yemen and we have put in place a humanitarian assistance package that now involves 1.25 billion dollars we have established land bridges into Yemen and air bridges into Yemen we have established safe corridors inside Yemen to make sure that the humanitarian assistance flows smoothly we have increased the capacity of Yemeni ports along the Red Sea and we will continue to work on making sure that we minimize the humanitarian tragedy that exists in Yemen we have also established an office for the reconstruction of Yemen and set aside ten billion dollars to begin the reconstruction effort as soon as the fighting stops and we're determined to increase that number it through our partners in the international community the Houthis are now on the defence is three years ago they were controlling most of the country now they control less than 15 percent and they're losing ground day by day we are we have worked to tighten the inspections regime associated with Yemen to minimize the flow of weapons to the Houthis the Iranians continue to smuggle ballistic missiles into Yemen which the Houthis then launch at cities in both Yemen and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and this is something that I believe no country can tolerate and that's why we have this effort the next on my stop on my agenda is Libya we are working with the Libyan leaders to try to come up with a roadmap for moving forward the UN Special Envoy Salameh is has the roadmap in place we pretty much have agreement from the key political leaders about this roadmap but now we need to move towards implementation of this roadmap so that's going to be our next challenge and if we think we can overcome it the biggest problem we face in our region though is Iran Iran is the source for extremism and radicalism in the region Iran is state sponsor of terrorism Iran interferes in the affairs of the countries of the region in a very negative way Iran flaunts international laws and resolutions that have to do with ballistic missiles or terrorism or the principle respecting the principle of good neighborliness and non interference in the affairs of other countries we we have had this issue with Iran since the 1979 Jimena Revolution when Iran took it upon itself to be the champion of all Shia in the world which is not acceptable that would be like the Vatican saying we are responsible for every Catholic irrespective of their nationality Iran has enshrined in its constitution the principle of exporting the Revolution which is also something that no country can accept and for three decades we extended our hand in friendship to Iran only to be met with death and destruction and so we took a different approach in the last three years and our approach is to push back against Iran's influence in the Arab world in the Islamic world and to call a spade a spade when you assassinate diplomats when you blow up embassies when you harbor terrorists such as Osama bin Laden's son and say that either the she the chief of operations for al-qaeda when instructions go out from Iran by these terrorists to blow up housing compounds in Saudi Arabia that is not acceptable and so we have said that Iran must be held accountable for this and which brings me to the jcpoa which everybody is talking about we think that the agreement is flawed we think that the and needs to be tightened with regards to the sunset provision that expires in approximately eight years and lifts the limitations on how many centrifuges Iran can have which would allow Iran to ramp up its centrifuge capacity and to acquire enough enriched uranium to manufacture an atomic bomb in a matter of weeks that's not acceptable the second part of the agreement that needs to be improved is the inspections mechanism it has to include non declared sites and military sites and it has to ensure that the that the inspections can occur at any time at any place without any restrictions but the agreement by itself does not solve the problem of Iran Iran must be held accountable for violating the UN resolutions with regards to ballistic missiles you cannot provide ballistic missiles to terrorist organizations which then fire them at civilians randomly so that Iran must be held accountable for and the third set that Iran must be held accountable for is its support of terrorism and interference in the affairs of other countries so if if these three pillars are in place then we will have an effective sanctions regime against Iran but if they're not in place then the Iranians will continue to engage in their mischief now with regards to Saudi Arabia the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is on a path of major reform we are transforming our country we believe that we need to reduce our dependence on oil we need to empower our youth we need to empower women we need to open up our economy we need to open up new areas for investments such as recreation entertainment mining and other area tourism in other areas we believe that in order to accomplish this we need to have efficient accountable transparent government that's what we're working on we're fighting against corruption we're working on setting benchmarks for every ministry to achieve between now and 2030 and we believe that if we can do this we will unleash the potential of our citizens in particular our youth our country is a young nation 70% of our people are under the age of 30 they have hopes dreams and ambitions they are well connected to the world we are probably one of the definitely one of the most connected countries in the world in terms of social media and in terms of access we have had half a million of our young men and women study at universities all around the world from Japan to the US they they will come back and enrich our country I believe half of them or more have already graduated and come back and so we need to give them the opportunity to excel and when they excel our country Rises and we become stronger and the stronger we become the more immune we will be to the problems around us and so that is the path that were embarking upon we're fighting extremism very vigorously we're pushing back against intolerance we want to have a country in which normal people lead normal lives we want to have a country that is economically efficient economically prosperous and we want to have a country that as a result of this will be a very stable country this is our vision there's a dark vision that that's the Iranians are pushing which is ignore your people focus on exporting your revolution stoke the fires of sectarianism divert your resources from economic development to supporting militias and adventures abroad and if your people don't like it crackdown heart that vision cannot prevail history has shown us that light always triumphs over darkness and I have no doubt that the vision that we are working towards is the one that will prevail so maybe I think I may have talked too much I can stop here and then maybe we can continue the discussion great thank you [Applause] are we are we hot good Oh mister thank you very much and let me join President John Allen and thanking you from for being here or there a number of people in the room you know very well Martin Indyk and and others and a number of our trustees are in the room so thank you very much for being here with us I want to start where you started on the Saudi US relationship since 1943 it's been a deep relationship the United States and Saudi Arabia has stood beside each other in maintaining order in the region and been partners on many other things I'd be curious through your perspective as American policy has swung fairly dramatically on issues in the region there was obviously substantial turmoil in the region and in the relationship during the Obama period you talked about some other moments some other storms that we've weathered now we're into a much more constructive phase do you have whiplash or how do you navigate these changes in American policy you deal with it we do we deal with it countries have interests and they pursue those interests our our role as friends and allies is to point out what we believe the the right approach should be and if our friends take it that's great if they don't take it at least we did our responsibility as friends by pointing it out to them one of the interesting things that I've noticed in the last three years is for many many years people were saying Saudi Arabia is a big powerful country it has resources it should they want to hold our coattails while we go into battle why don't they take charge and this is this has been a mantra for many years and then when we decided to lead people are saying oh my god are the Saudis being reckless and so I say this is like a catch-22 if we don't lead people say lead and when we leave they say what are you doing and so if you want to lead lead will support and if you don't want to lead will lead and we hope for your support this was the argument that we were we were making because the problem in in international relations is when the u.s. is the largest power withdraws it creates a vacuum and into that vacuum evil forces flow so you have to make sure that no vacuum is created because your adversaries will take advantage of this and your adversaries are adversaries also we're very big fans of allies who lead precisely as we would like them to but that's a another debate let's turn to the wonderful neighborhood as you described and I want to push you a little bit on the Iranian questions you talked about conditions that would allow there to be a more effective set of sanctions more effective set of pressures changes to the agreement those are hard to argue with but let me draw you out on two points one is what are the conditions under which you could see let's assume that everything you described is implemented the but what are the conditions under which you could see an actual movement towards repulsion between Riyadh and Tehran the change in Iran's policies as simple as that yes how can you deal with a country that attacks your embassies that assassinates your diplomats that stages terrorist attacks in your country that sends ballistic missiles to militias who then launch it at our cities including our capital city this is not the behavior of a country that wants to have good relations let me push you on another point Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in this trip one of the things that got quite a lot of commentary was he made a statement that I think people are interpreting as saying in effect if Iran gets a nuclear weapon we will get a nuclear weapon now that's a long time understood but I think hasn't been stated quite as clearly as that until recently that obviously is in one way a deterrent for Iran you could also argue though that if you're the United States and you hear that you think well then we have to be awfully careful walking away from the jcpoa because if we lose progress on containing Iranian nuclear program then Saudi and then we're off to the races so how do you how do you think about the the nuclear question what would you do if your enemy is about to acquire a nuclear weapon just sit there of course not so we hope and I have an aquarium and we've always said that we want to have the middle-east fleet free of weapons of mass destruction but we can't let others acquire it and then use it to cause mischief in the region or use it as a shield to allow them to cause mischief in the region so really the onus is on Iran not on us do you see progress being made in the coming months on the sunset question I hope so I know there are discussions between the US and between the European countries and there's a I hope that they can come up with mechanisms in order to extend that let's turn to Yemen you talked about that at some length and I appreciate that it's obviously a cause of a great deal of concern here both the humanitarian consequences and the strategic picture I'm well aware of the efforts you've done to pre position the possibility of reconstruction how quickly do you think we can make the kind of progress necessary to get - to get to that outcome it's up to the Houthis more than 70 agreements were made and every single one of them they violated the last time they they met in Kuwait for three and a half months came up with a blueprint for resolving the conflict and staging it and then when the government of Yemen accepted it the Houthis rejected it and then they turned around and said we need to make some changes so John Kerry made some changes with regards to the sequencing which was very difficult for the Yemeni government to accept and then in the end the Houthis walked away and then the quartet in December of 2016 meeting in Riyadh came up with a formulation and under it the Yemeni government and the Houthis would send representatives to the UN office in Amman Jordan in order to get training on de-escalation and monitoring and so forth and after that they were supposed to come to the what's called the DCC Center in the Heron South it's a small town although inside surgery we're close to the M&E border the houthis not only didn't show up to our man but they loved a ballistic missile at the center in the her on south that's not the behavior of somebody who wants to make peace and then with regards to the humanitarian situation the Houthis steal humanitarian assistance and sell it to fund their war machine the Houthis lay siege on towns and villages which leads to the starvation of people the Houthis robbed the central bank of three billion dollars they stole the pension public that the pension funds they smuggle gasoline buy it for $3 in perdida and sell it a sauna for 17 they take took the revenues of the cell phone company they take young boys 9 10 11 years old and put them on the frontlines they mined areas randomly which leads to people getting killed or maimed because of these minds and yet people portray them as if they'll be innocent yeah I want to ask you and we're gonna come to the audience in a moment but I want to ask you about a couple of issues that you didn't speak to which in a way of surprising if I think about us-saudi relations and the issues that would have been central to the discussion five years ago ten years ago 15 years ago energy would have come up and the arab-israeli peace process would have come up now we didn't give you much time so it's not as if you have to cover everything but I would be interested in your perspective on where Saudi thinking is again MBS made some fairly controversial commentary on Jerusalem we've had the past engagement of the Saudi peace process etc what is your thinking about Saudis role and trying to encourage an arab-israeli peace process and how do you see the us-saudi relationship on energy issues now the United States is in a very different place in terms of energy production and exports than it was in the I know those are totally different questions on energy we've had a dialogue for decades on energy we both want stable markets fluctuations in price are very destructive they negatively affect investment decisions and they impact on economic growth too high prices leads to slowdown in economic growth and increases the cost which sets the stage for reducing consumption which then drops the price of oil and we as producers suffer so our objective since the mid 80s has been to try to maintain balance in the markets so that you have stability of price of oil in order not to shock the systems and then and that still remains our policy with the US producing oil and being an exporter that's a positive because world demand for oil is going to peak by 2030 or 2040 so we will see continued growth and then it'll begin to gradually drop how are we going to meet the demand the increase in demand over the next 15 years or so the u.s. production is good in other countries what we're seeing is limits on how much how much longer they can produce oil so while the American production has gone up what's how do productions gone up in other places it'll it'll begin to come down so we need to make sure that we have that stability so we don't we continue to engage with the US on this as well as with other countries OPEC producers as well as not all big producers like Russia like Mexico and in order to bring that stability with regards to be before you shifted can I just ask you I mean obviously the politics of this country a little different right now but there are some of us who want to continue to push hard on climate change questions and see that point at which the consumption of oil begins to decrease come upwards in time are you prepared for a reality in which climate change politics begins to drive that issue forward faster we are we we are part of the effort to improve the climate because we live in this world I mean global warming effect Saudi Arabia but I think our view is we have to be honest Cole is a much bigger polluter than oil and yet in Europe they subsidize coal and they tax oil two three four hundred percent so if you're serious about time of change shift from the source of energy that is a much greater polluter before you talk about oil but because you they have coal we can't touch coal but we have oil it's okay where is the sense of fairness here so the V and then you have other issues in terms of hydro fluorocarbons that we have worked on a arrangements of we live in a country where the temperature in the summer exceeds 50 degrees centigrade that's like 125 degrees so air-conditioning for us is a must do you have the technology that can provide air conditioning without use of this chemical it doesn't exist and so we have factories that produce this that have not finished their useful economic cycle so we the agreement that was made was that over a period of 25 or 30 years assuming that an alternative is found you would then basically let these factories expire and if an if a scientific solution is not found then you extend it so for us this is a we have to make sure that we have the ability to provide for cooling sorry I cut you off your about yes shift to Jerusalem in Europe with rights to the arab-israeli conflict I mean the kingdom's position has been consistent since King Fahad late King Fahad offered the eight-point plan that was adopted by the Arab world that calls for a two-state solution Palestinian state on the 67 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital in 2002 then crown points later King up the put forth what became the Arab Peace Initiative which provided essentially says two states here's what we do a few years later the initiative was amended to allow for minor and mutually agreed to swaps of territory that would incorporate most of the settlements that are on the Green Line in exchange for territory of equal size or equal value and that remains our position today the the our advice to the Trump administration is the same advice we gave to the Obama administration and the same advice we gave to the George Bush administration which is incremental ISM and confidence-building measures don't work we know what a settlement looks like ask Martin he's been to do it twice we know what we know what the settlement looks like the problem is and we know that the big five issues let's say settlements borders security Jerusalem refugees you can deal with the first one and at a tremendous political price by the time we get to the second one you may not have the political capital to do it and if you do if you think about the third one you're outflanked by the right and this applies to both the Israelis in the Palestinian so our argument was put it all in one package and say here's what believe is a fair deal and then see how we can get the parties across the goal-line the challenge was not coming up with a formula for a settlement we know what the Palestinians is in these Raley's came very close in 2000 Abu Mazen and onward came very close in 2008 so we kind of know what the package looks like the the challenge is what prevented us from moving it across the goal line that's that's the issue and we think that if it was one up and down vote it would be easier for the parties than if it was dribbled out so this is our position six Palestinian state on 67 borders with minor mutually agree to adjustments resulting in swaps of equal value equal sized East Jerusalem is Palestinian capital and then the security arrangements john allen came up with them in the beginning of the Bush administration and they're probably sitting in a file somewhere at the NSC so it's not rocket science but but the the the Trump administration has been looking at coming up with a different approach to see how they can get to that point and they have been consulting with countries and partners in the region and seeking advice and we have offered them the advice and not all of it did they take but that's another story and now we believe that the issue of Jerusalem declaring it Israel's capital was not helpful it it was a setback we warned about it we expressed our position on it publicly when it was announced but now we want to see what how can you how can you move this process forward there are many other questions I could ask you the whole of North Africa we haven't touched on but I want to turn to the audience and we'll open it up and we'll move forward so Martin right a first question thank you Bruce mr. foreign minister welcome to Washington welcome to Brookings it's very good to see you again I have two questions if I'm allowed one is a follow-up naturally on much said about the peace process you yourself have been involved in in the effort to promote arab-israeli peace I think for as long as I have and the Saudi position has been consistent as you outlined it recently of course has been talk about an outside-in approach that the commonality of interest between Israel and Sunni Arab States led by Saudi Arabia vis V Iran creates an opportunity for Saudi Arabia and it's any partners to play a more upfront role in the peace process and talk about pressing the Palestinians providing them with the large amounts of money there's been a lot of this kind of talk which you're very familiar with hell would you say has there been any change under his royal highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Saudi approach or is it entirely consistent with the one that you've been promoting for all of these years the second question is about President Trump who has made friendship with Saudi Arabia a pillar of his of his approach to the region but I wonder how how you view a lot of the other parts of his approach to the world in in particular Saudi Arabia in the past has been very concerned about the reliability of prayer American presidents and I wonder whether whether the way in which the the president Trump's movement back and forth on various issues and creates a concern about his willingness to stay the course with the policies that you appreciate thank you know our policy with regards to the resolving the arab-israeli conflict is the same we we have played an increasingly active role in this process as you know since the Madrid conference we attended the Madrid conference we attended the multilateral talks in 2002 we put our own initiative which became the Arab Peace Initiative on the table which is which was a very bold step we have been involved with trying to move or come up with a plan under secretary Kerry and we have said to the Trump administration that were prepared to work with them as partners in moving the process forward but ultimately it's up to these readers in the Palestinian to make the deal and the outlines of the deal are are as I mentioned to you the question is can we can we find a way to get the parties there it's not going to be easy I'm you've been through this for 28 years now right but that's where our position is so our policy has not changed with regards to the commonality of interests or the outside in approach we think that the fruits of peace have to come at the end not in the beginning because then where's the incentive we believe that the Middle East can be turned into a very prosperous area what we're doing in Saudi Arabia with that I mentioned to you in terms of economic reforms major ones you look at the Emirates you look at Kuwait you look at Qatar look at Bahrain Egypt is a bright spot Egypt is now not only standing on its feet it's running and so we think if we can link the Middle East and the Iraqis are coming back if we can link the Middle East into some type of common market we all benefit including the Israelis but it can't happen and this we have peace and so that remains our approach now the nation-states tend to be rational actors and they pursue their interests and so the and there is the the commonalities of interests that exist doesn't mean you have to have relations so that's where we are that area the the second question sorry yes oh yeah I want to I want to make it clear that I want to make it clear that we there has not been an American president since FDR who was not committed to the security of Saudi Arabia we have no doubt none of the presidents we thought was soft on this issue there were disagreements with some administration's with regards to how we think they should handle regional crisis a certain crisis in the region how they should handle Iran how they should deal with the peace process how they should deal with and and those disagreements are natural you NATO allies don't see I tie with you on every issue but they are all committed to the security of the North Atlantic as are you that's the the relation so we don't see any American president as unreliable they're all reliable when it comes to the us-saudi relationship with regard to president Trump he once he believes America should play a role in the world so do we he believes that the US should support its allies and push back against its adversaries so do we he believes in containing Iran so do we he believes in going after extremism and terrorism robustly so do we and so we have we have we have great relationship with him and his administration as a consequence the the people he appointed a secretary of defense a Secretary of State as CIA director as NSC advisor they're all well known to us and they're very solid very experienced individuals who share that outlook and so our relationship what we have done is decided to further institutionalize the relationship at all levels in all departments so that we come up with objectives for the next 20-30 years and we come up with mechanisms to implement those objectives so that our relationship can then be on autopilot and not subject to personalities and and not subject and and so that we have complete transparency in terms of knowing what your objectives are what our objectives are how we can align those objectives and how we can most effectively work to achieving those objectives I think we have time for a couple more questions or you still okay time for so we'll take one on the front one on the side maybe we'll take two or three questions and you can please thank you Bruce inaudible BC with Al Arabiya I'm said foreign minister during his meeting with the crown prince general Allen said in the Pentagon today that he wanted to see the war in Yemen coming to an end I believe he said it twice in different wording he also said that he want to guarantee the security of Saudi Arabia how do you achieve that how do you who's gonna force the Houthis to come to Nate negotiation table if you want to see an end to the war in Yemen thank you we're a couple questions on the side here thank you Steve Landy Manchester trade we have oh your brother many favors so I press on it thank you we have more of an economic question and to phrase it very quickly we think there are many opportunities for Saudi Arabia cooperation with the Trump administration one AoE we think is in development of infrastructure because there's such an important goal of the two administration's to is in bringing industries back to the United States which can be based on finished products coming out of Saudi Arabia chemicals consistent is there anyone who's focusing on quote this joint work together in economic development beyond all over other cooperation thank you again for giving us - thank you one last question sure my Lewis here it's Russian embassy in Washington I took note of your what you said about pushing back around now Iranians come up with ideas of engaging with Saudi Arabia and its neighbors in a kind of multilateral dialogue in the Gulf with the Gulf countries to address concerns that might that Saudi Arabia has could Iran have how do you take this this proposal on the part of Iran okay so question on Yemen a question on trade and a question on this last question I also want to add one thing that we didn't touch on you talked about the economic reforms in the country we talked briefly on the energy reforms you didn't touch on on human rights and I think there'd be a lot of interest to hear where human rights fit into the reforms and inserting yes okay with regards to Yemen we are working with the UN Special Envoy to try to move the political process forward when we commenced military operations three years ago I was the one who made the announcement when I was ambassador in Washington and I said at the time that the only solution to the Yemeni crisis is a political solution and we have been trying to work on it ever since and so how do you get the Houthis to accept they have to realize that they're isolated they have to realize that instead of controlling the whole country they control less than 15 percent of the territory now they have to realize that the international community will not allow them to take over Yemen and then they have to realize that they have a way out and it's a fair way that gives them a role in the future of Yemen and that ends this this war in Yemen and shifts towards reconstruction and development in Yemen and we think that we're still intend to explore those possibilities but ultimately in order to make peace you need two sides to say yes we have the legitimate government of Yemen saying yes we have the Houthis saying no the Houthis used to be allied with former president Saleh and then they murdered him and so now they've lost his party and their own own in Yemen in the terms of the political process and so we think time there is no solution for them but a political solution and that's what we're doing but we're determined to keep up the military pressure on them until we have a settlement of this issue the second question was about investments in the u.s. we have between Saudi private and governmental investments we probably have close to 800 billion dollars invested in the u.s. we still look to the US as an attractive destination because of political stability and because of your dynamic economy for infrastructure we have committed twenty billion dollars to invest in infrastructure projects in the US because we think the returns are good and it's stable the so that's one part in terms of petrochemicals and so forth we have huge investments in the largest refining complex in the US is owned by Saudi Aramco the largest chemical complex probably in the world is in Saudi Arabia and it's owned by Dow and Aramco so we have a lot of investments both American investments in Saudi Arabia and Saudi investments in the US and we continue to look for those now we're looking at things like local content we want to be part of the supply chain of American defense contractors so that when we buy equipment from the US a certain percentage of it is manufactured in Saudi Arabia we can then acquire the expertise and the technology and those and then we can manufacture for products that go from those companies to other countries so we're looking at this very seriously we have a an office for strategic partnerships that is looking at a lot of opportunities for investments by American companies in Saudi Arabia and by Saudi companies and the Saudi government the public investment fund in the u.s. we're looking at we're trying to develop Saudi Arabia as a transportation hub ten more almost thirteen percent of the world's trade goes through the Red Sea yet we don't have any logistics in the Red Sea for that we want to develop this we want to build a futuristic city in the north of Saudi Arabia cordon that will focus on artificial intelligence robotics clean energy renewable energy that will focus on technology that will act as an incubator so that we can bring young innovative people with ideas to Saudi Arabia so we can invest in them we're looking at investing in in tourism and in entertainment and Recreation and we're looking at American companies we've identified many American companies that can be helpful in this healthcare so that's the the we intend to take what is already a very very large economic relationship with the US and take it to an even higher level and the third question with regards to the the the offer by Iran to have talks what we're looking for is action not words you cannot say you want to have a dialogue when we've had one for 30 years and you're smuggling weapons into Bahrain on a daily basis the Iranians asked Kuwait to set up a meeting with the GCC countries in order to begin this dialogue and while they were doing this they set up the largest terrorist cell that was discovered their lab daily cell was the objective of undermining the Kuwaiti government you don't do this you don't say I want to talk to you and then you give missiles to a terrorist group that launches those missiles at our Capitol that's that's the problem with Iran and so until and unless Iran changes its behavior it'll be impossible to deal with them we have to the Iranians have to decide if they're a nation state or if they're a revolution if they're revolution they're emotional and irrational and we can't deal with them if they want to be a nation state then they should act like one and we haven't seen them act like this human rights Oh human rights yes of course human rights as part of our reform effort and when you look at Saudi Arabia and you look at what with what what has happened over the last 50 years the the trajectory is very clear first we think you have the right to security you have the light right to education you have the right to healthcare you have the right to opportunity when you secure those which we have then you look at other things if you look at our political system and participation in Saudi Arabia we went from no government institutions to institutions we established a consultative council in the early 90s sixty members fairly limited powers now it has 150 members 20 percent of them are women and they have much broader powers than they had before we have human rights organizations a private one and a public one we have opened up the space in terms of our media and public discussion and public discourse we are as I mentioned probably the most connected people on social media in the world which I can't say about the Iranians their Foreign Minister has a Twitter account but he can tweet in Farsi because nobody has access to sweater Twitter and in Iran so he's addressing his words to you we should be addressing them to his people we don't have that problem and so we're moving forward in those areas we're looking at our laws or looking at improving the training of judges and we're looking at codifying laws so that we have more clarity in terms of how it's like in your system you have sentencing guidelines we're looking at things like this to improve it and it will improve women can drive come June women can attend sports events were focused we appointed a minister for women's sports we the guardianship system is changing the limitations are being relaxed one of our senior one of our religious scholars issued an important statement saying women don't have to wear a black abaya who says it has to be black it but the Quran says modest dress we have now entertainment in public spaces we have concert which we which was not available a few years back so it's evolving and I think and on on the issue of human rights it will continue to evolve because it has to evolve we know this and we're moving in that direction we're out of time I'm there are a number of things we could follow up here both on the internal questions and the external I just want to make two points as we conclude you know the new Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths is a an old friend of many of ours here and we have some expertise in peace processes we have a some expertise in reconstruction if there are ways and we can be helpful to him or to you and in that effort I know that wool will lean into the to that effort it's a crucially important relationship I think there's nobody in Washington who doesn't understand that the stability of Saudi is crucially important to the United States so thank you the role that you play in maintaining that and maintaining this vitally important relationship and thank you for being a Brooklands [Applause]

Channel: Brookings Institution

Views: 101,106

Keywords: Brookings Institution, Saudi Arabia, H.E. Adel Al-Jubeir, Alan and Jane Batkin International Leaders Forum, U.S.-Saudi relations, Iran, Yemen, human rights, Saudi economy, MbS, Mohammed Bin Salman

Id: -zynqc34KhE

Length: 52min 54sec (3174 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 23 2018