Tabnak – Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz is in a historic visit to Russia to improve the usually uneasy Moscow-Riyadh relationship. As Salman met today with the Russian President Vladimir Putin, reports indicate to the huge economic and military deals between the two sides.
Russian state media Russia Today believes that Salman’s visit, which is the first state visit to Russia by a reigning Saudi monarch, marks a new level of relations between the countries.
Following Putin’s meeting with Salman, the two countries launched a joint energy investment fund worth $1 billion. The fund could include investments in natural gas projects and petrochemical plants.
Saudi state oil firm Saudi Aramco signed a deal with Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and gas processing and petrochemicals company Sibur on joint projects in the area of oil refining. The two countries also agreed to cooperate in nuclear energy, agriculture, information technology; trade, investments and social development.
As another important part of the deals, it is reported that Saudi Arabia has signed preliminary agreements to buy S-400 air defense systems and receive "cutting-edge technologies” from Russia.
Under agreements signed with Russian state-owned arms exporter Rosoboronexport, Saudi Arabia is set to procure the anti-aircraft weapon system, the Kornet-EM anti-tank guided missile system, 220mm 24-barrel TOS-1A multiple rocket launcher as well as AGS-30 Atlant automatic grenade launcher, the state-owned Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) said in a statement on Thursday.
These contracts are "expected to play a pivotal role in the growth and development of the military and military systems industry in Saudi Arabia,” the statement read. The Saudi Arabian Military Industries further noted that the memoranda of understanding also "include the transfer of technology for the local production” of the aforementioned military systems.
On the political front however, Al-Jazeera notes in a report that there was no sign of any substantial breakthrough on the issues that divide Moscow and Riyadh, including the fact that they back rival sides in Syria's civil war.
Meanwhile, although there was no hints of a major political development, there was no hint of any public discord either. Briefing the media on the talks between Putin and King Salman, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov focused on the common ground between the two countries.
The two leaders had a "friendly and substantial discussion based on a desire by Moscow and Riyadh to consistently grow mutually-beneficial partnerships in all spheres", Lavrov said at a press conference alongside his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir.
Pro-Saudi regional media have started to say that Riyadh has shifted its stance from seeing Moscow as an unreliable partner a year ago to one that it is willing to cooperate on multiple levels as both countries have found political and economic advantages in working together.
It should be noted that Saudi Arabia, much like Russia, has been hit by the fall in oil prices since mid-2014. Despite regional disagreements, the two countries found common ground on energy policy in November when they led a deal between OPEC and non-OPEC states to cut production in a bid to shore up crude prices. So far, that deal is holding.
