U.S. President Joe Biden will discuss regional missile and defence capabilities on Saturday when he meets Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia, where he will be seeking to integrate Israel as part of a new axis largely driven by shared concerns over Iran, said a senior administration official.
"We believe there's great value in including as many of the capabilities in this region as possible and certainly Israel has significant air and missile defence capabilities, as they need to. But we're having these discussion bilaterally with these nations," the administration official told reporters.
Biden, on his first Middle East trip as president, has focused on the planned summit with six Gulf states and Egypt, Jordan and Iraq while downplaying meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. That encounter has drawn criticism in the United States over human rights abuses.
Biden had promised to make Saudi Arabia a "pariah" on the global stage over the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents, but ultimately decided U.S. interests dictated a recalibration, not a rupture, in relations with the world's top oil exporter and Arab powerhouse.
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