17 December 2023
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg undertook a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia on 12-13 December - the first ever by a sitting Secretary General of NATO. Although Stoltenberg did not meet the Defence Minister of Saudi Arabia, Prince Khalid bin Salman Al Saud, during his visit, they spoke by phone. According to a NATO statement Stoltenberg “underlined Saudi Arabia’s leading role in the Arab and Muslim world, and said he looked forward to the possibility of developing dialogue and cooperation in areas like maritime security and freedom of navigation, the protection of critical infrastructure, and the fight against terrorism”. The Saudi Defence Minister also accepted an invitation to visit NATO Headquarters in Brussels in early 2024.
On the issue of counterterrorism, Saudi Arabia has been a leading partner in the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS from the outset and foreign ministers of the Coalition convened in Riyadh in June 2023.
Stoltenberg also engaged in a public discussion at the Saudi Armed Forces and Staff College where he said, “I believe there is huge potential for NATO to do more with Saudi Arabia because we have mutual challenges", pointing to issues including Iran's destabilising influence in the region, as well as climate change.
While in Saudi Arabia, Stoltenberg also met with Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed A. Elkhereiji and the Chairman of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Air Chief Marshal Fayyadh al-Ruwaili, held talks with the Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Jasem Mohamed AlBudaiwi, visited the headquarters of Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) to meet with Chief Executive Officer Walid Abukhaled, and exchanged views with a group of policy makers, think tank experts and media in a meeting hosted by the Gulf Research Centre.
The NATO Secretary General recently appointed a group of external experts to review NATO's approach to the Gulf, the Middle East, and Africa, calling this an opportunity to explore new avenues of cooperation. NATO currently has two partnership arrangements with countries in the region: Mediterranean Dialogue, which was initiated in 1994 and currently involves Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI), which was launched in 2004 and currently involves Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE. Saudi Arabia participates in selected activities within the ICI framework, and the previous NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said over a decade ago that "Saudi Arabia is a key player in the region and NATO would welcome the opportunity to engage the Kingdom's government as a partner in the ICI". Saudi Arabia also participates in the annual Eager Lion regional military exercises that also involve several NATO member states.
While NATO is looking to deepen collaboration with partners in the region, Saudi Arabia is itself keen to build bridges with the West following its brief pariah status because of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, as well as its leading role in the war in Yemen. This year, Saudi Arabia has been involved in a plethora of diplomatic initiatives–from its beginning of normalisation with Iran, to peace talks with the Yemeni Houthis, to the reintegration of Syria into the Arab League, to efforts to broker a ceasefire in Sudan, to hosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the Arab League Summit in Jeddah. Saudi Arabia is also in talks to become a member of BRICS – the group of emerging economies comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – by January 2024. Seen in this context, Saudi Arabia’s engagement with NATO is one strand of a flexible foreign policy strategy that allows Riyadh to pivot between major-power camps.