King Salman's White House visit nets 'fruitful discussion'

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman on Friday made his first visit to the White House since acceding to the throne in January, a meeting meant to reaffirm the U.S.-Saudi relationship at a time when the allies find themselves at odds over a number of issues, particularly Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East.

Salman, speaking through an interpreter, characterized his visit as an amicable affair. “I’m happy to come to a friendly country to meet a friend,” he said. “We want to work together for world peace.”

Close watchers expected as much, with F. Gregory Gause III, head of the international affairs department at Texas A&M University, earlier predicting the leaders would try to “put aside the rancor” and “put a common front.”

“On both sides it’s less about deliverables and more about the atmospherics,” Gause said 

Indeed, a joint statement issued after the meeting touted the leaders’ “fruitful discussion” on a number of issues, but offered little in the way of results.

The regional impact of the Iran nuclear agreement that the U.S. and five world powers concluded with Tehran in July was at the top of the agenda. That agreement cleared one of its last remaining hurdles this week, when President Barack Obama secured enough legislative votes to prevent a Congressional resolution that could have derailed it. 

While Saudi Arabia appears prepared to accept the nuclear deal, it remains critical of the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts, which it fears could be part of a broader U.S. strategic détente with Tehran. Riyadh remains an implacable foe of Iranian power and influence in the region.

The Saudis want assurances from the U.S. that the Iran nuclear deal comes with a broader effort to counter Iran's destabilizing activities in the region, something the Obama administration has made pains to emphasize as a priority.

“We’re determined that our Gulf friends will have the political and the military support that they need,” Secretary of State John Kerry said during a speech on Wednesday in which he set the tone for Friday's meeting. Kerry and Obama have defended the nuclear agreement to Gulf states as limited to arms control and necessary to address shared concerns about Iran’s regional ambitions.

Another prominent point of discussion between Obama and Salman was the status of Yemen. They both expressed desire for an inclusive, functioning government in Sanaa that could relieve the impoverished country of its humanitarian crisis.

Since March, the U.S. has supported a Saudi-led military campaign against Yemen's Houthi rebels, who Riyadh sees as an extension of Iranian power, and who chased Yemen's U.S.-recognized president into exile in Riyadh.

But the Obama administration has expressed concern about the conflict's rising death toll, which the U.N. says includes more than 2,000 civilians.

"We share concerns about Yemen and the need to restore a function government that is inclusive and that can relieve the humanitarian situation there," Obama told reporters who were allowed into the Oval Office for brief comments from both leaders. The meeting, Obama noted, was taking place at a "challenging time in world affairs, particularly in the Middle East."

Ahead of the meeting, human rights groups criticized the U.S. and Saudi Arabia for their role in the Yemen conflict.

“Obama and Salman should discuss the Saudi-led bombing campaign and agree to end indiscriminate attacks that have killed countless Yemeni civilians,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a press release on Thursday. “The U.S. should recognize that the role it’s playing in military operations in Yemen may also make it responsible for laws-of-war violations by coalition forces.”

The meeting also touched on differences between Washington and Riyadh over the Syrian conflict. While the U.S. supports so-called moderate rebels there, the Obama administration has rebuffed Saudi calls to unseat Syria’s Iranian-backed president, Bashar al-Assad.

For its part, the U.S. is more preoccupied with the gains made in Syria by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). And while the two countries are ostensibly part of the same international coalition against ISIL, the fight is less important to Riyadh, where the specter of Iranian influence in Syria and elsewhere remains a more pressing issue.

Hinting at the disagreements between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia amid broader shared interests, U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday: “So whether it’s Yemen, Iraq, Syria, we want to make sure that we have, again, military strategies, but also political strategies that support a resolution of conflict, and again, humanitarian assistance for the many people who are in need.”

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press