On his last stop during his ongoing Middle East trip, United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, the new leader of Oman. According to a tweet from Pompeo, the leaders discussed the “importance of building regional peace, stability and prosperity through a united Gulf Cooperation Council.”
Prior to landing in Muscat, Pompeo visited the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan, and Israel during his regional tour, in light of the 13 August US-brokered peace deal to normalize diplomatic relations between the UAE and Israel. Pompeo’s visit to Oman had not been announced by the State Department, although it is highly likely that he campaigned for the Sultanate to follow the lead of the Emirates in reaching a deal with Tel Aviv.
Sultan Haitham is Oman’s new leader after the demise of the country’s long-serving Sultan Qaboos al-Said in January. Further, the Sultanate’s new foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi, who took office just last week, was also reportedly a part of the meeting with Pompeo. In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an informal visit to meet Qaboos and discuss possible peace initiatives for the region. While Muscat, which has served as a mediator between the US and Iran several times, has welcomed the UAE-Israel accord, it has not yet commented on the prospects of signing such a deal itself.
Soon after the announcement of the UAE-Israel deal, Tel Aviv’s intelligence minister predicted that Oman and Bahrain would be the next Arab Gulf countries to recognize diplomatic ties with the Jewish state. However, during his closed-door meetings in Manama, Pompeo reportedly received the cold shoulder from Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, who told the American politician that the Kingdom was committed to the Arab Peace Initiative clauses as a prerequisite to peace and the normalization of ties with Israel. “The king stressed the importance of intensifying efforts to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict according to the two-state solution ... to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital,” the state-run Bahrain News Agency reported.
During his time in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Pompeo reportedly played a pre-recorded speech by President Donald Trump in support of his reelection run for the Republican National Convention. Trump’s competitor Democrat Joe Biden has heavily criticized Pompeo for playing a political speech during a diplomatic visit, arguing that Trump was looking at Israel as a “political wedge issue” and was abusing “taxpayer dollars” to gain votes ahead of the November election. “The historic bipartisan support in Washington for Israel and her security should never be subordinated to politicization for personal gain,” said a statement from the Biden campaign.
Pompeo Concludes Middle East Tour With Visit to New Omani Sultan
The US Secretary of State has been in the region to show US support for peace efforts
August 28, 2020
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS