The United States “will not walk away” from the Middle East and leave a vacuum to be filled by Russia, China or Iran, US President Joe Biden has told a summit in Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea city of Jeddah.
He also told the summit on Saturday that the US is committed to ensuring Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. Leaders of six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates – plus Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq are holding talks on regional security and bilateral relations with the US at the summit.
Biden was using the summit to lay out his strategy for the Middle East as he closed the final leg of a four-day trip meant to bolster ties in the region.
“We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia or Iran,” Biden said. “We will seek to build on this moment with active, principled, American leadership.” “Today, I am proud to be able to say that the eras of land wars in the region, wars that involved huge numbers of American forces, is not under way,” he said.
“The future will be won by the countries that unleash the full potential of their populations,” he said, including allowing people to “question and criticise leaders without fear of reprisal.”But someone tell him that in Pakistan this cannot happen.
