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UK, Saudi Arabia to Work Together on Critical Minerals, Clean Energy

Part of the annual International Ministerial Meeting on Mining in Riyadh - Asharq Al-Awsat
Part of the annual International Ministerial Meeting on Mining in Riyadh - Asharq Al-Awsat
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UK, Saudi Arabia to Work Together on Critical Minerals, Clean Energy

Part of the annual International Ministerial Meeting on Mining in Riyadh - Asharq Al-Awsat
Part of the annual International Ministerial Meeting on Mining in Riyadh - Asharq Al-Awsat

The UK Minister of State for Industry, Sarah Jones, revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat a plan to enhance cooperation with Saudi Arabia in clean energy industries and advanced manufacturing. She announced plans to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Kingdom to support UK's new Industrial Strategy.

Jones is leading a delegation of 16 companies taking part in The Future Minerals Forum (FMF), a two-day international mining conference held in Riyadh.

In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, on the sidelines of the Fourth Annual International Ministerial Meeting on Mining, held in conjunction with the conference, Jones described the conference as the most significant critical minerals event in the Middle East and North Africa, emphasizing its importance as an opportunity to boost UK-Saudi ties, following Prime Minister Keir Starmer's visit last December.

Below is the full text of the interview:

Why are you attending the Future Minerals Forum at KSA?

Not only is the Future Minerals Forum the most significant critical minerals event in the Middle East and North Africa region, I see it as a valuable opportunity to strengthen our relationship with Saudi Arabia following Prime Minister Kier Starmer’s visit in December.
I’ll be signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Saudi Arabia to boost collaboration between our nations as we recognise the importance of critical minerals for our national security, benefitting economic growth which is our number one priority in government.
I’m also meeting Saudi businesses, international companies and a range of stakeholders, to highlight that the UK is a truly global economy. We’re open for business and determined to deliver investment into infrastructure and our supply chains to achieve the economic growth we need in every part of the UK.

What are you hoping to achieve from this visit?

Through signing this partnership with Saudi Arabia, we’re supporting the work the UK is doing with our new Industrial Strategy. As part of this 10-year plan, we have identified eight high-growth sectors, including clean energy industries and advanced manufacturing, to prioritise in growing the economy. We are proudly outward-looking and internationalist, and this Strategy will deliver the long-term stability and certainty businesses and investors need to show the UK is a mature trading partner.
We can boost growth further by increasing domestic production through mining, midstream processing and through recycling critical minerals, building on world-leading innovation and technical expertise in our chemicals and metals sectors.
As the Minister for Industry, I’m promoting these opportunities to major mining companies from the UK and Saudi Arabia, exploring the areas for collaboration throughout the supply chain.

What are the opportunities for the UK and Saudi working together on critical minerals?

Critical minerals are essential for a wide range of everyday items from cars to smartphones, and by 2040, the UK will need four times as many of them as we do today.
That’s why I’m leading a trade mission of 16 UK companies to showcase their expertise on the world stage here in Riyadh, where they will meet partners and potentially new customers from around the globe.
With Saudi Arabia’s ambitious plans for critical minerals under Vision 2030, and the UK’s new Critical Minerals Strategy coming later this year, we can forge closer ties and support each other’s ambitions with investment in lithium, tin and tungsten mining in the UK, as well as in the midstream processing for rare earths.
There are several other opportunities for the UK and Saudi to work together to secure our supply chains, including through our Centres of Excellence, joint critical minerals projects, and with investment into the critical minerals supply chain.

What does the MoU signing mean for the UK-KSA economic relationship and for the wider UK-Gulf relationship?

Through signing this agreement with Saudi Arabia, we’re showing our strong intent to deepen our collaboration on critical minerals. Even with increased domestic production, the UK will still rely on imports of critical minerals. That’s why it's vital that by developing our UK-Saudi economic relationship, we will meet our needs and help diversify our critical mineral supply chains.
The Memorandum of Understanding will provide us a framework for deepening cooperation, and we look forward to working with Saudi Arabia to develop this into new collaborative projects.

What will the new Critical Minerals Strategy focus on and what do you hope it will achieve?

Our new Critical Minerals Strategy will be released this year and will be more ambitious, more targeted and more international than previous strategies.
To drive growth and investment into our most important sectors, we need to ensure resilience for critical minerals by maximising domestic production through mining, refining, and recycling – and that means working together with countries like Saudi Arabia to maximise the opportunities in securing the supply chain.
Through building on the already established partnerships like Saudi Arabia, and new relationships with other partners, we're ensuring that we’re supporting the industries of tomorrow, delivering for businesses and creating new jobs across the UK.

What about the coming Great Future for the two nations?

The GREAT FUTURES launch event in May was a huge success in so far as it supported multiple partnerships between UK and Saudi businesses on projects that are now delivering tangible results for both our Kingdoms. The UK led a delegation of 450 businesses, the largest UK trade mission in a decade, and the largest ever from the UK to The Kingdom. This resulted in more than 50 MoU’s and agreements signed across various priority sectors, with Ministers from both countries agreeing to grow total trade from £17bn in 2022 to £30bn by 2030.

We’re now capitalising on that success with a 12-month program of events that will provide more opportunities for UK-Saudi collaboration across priority sectors such as trade, investment, tourism, education and cultural engagement, all in support of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. In addition to these programs, we aim to deliver a one year on summit in London this summer to mark one year since the campaign began. This landmark event will once again convene UK and Saudi senior government and business decision-makers to develop further partnerships between our two countries, while reaffirming and strengthening our bilateral relationship.

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Interviews

Goldrich to Asharq Al-Awsat: No US Withdrawal from Syria

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat
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Goldrich to Asharq Al-Awsat: No US Withdrawal from Syria

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich has told Asharq Al-Awsat that the US does not plan to withdraw its forces from Syria.

The US is committed to “the partnership that we have with the local forces that we work with,” he said.

Here is the full text of the interview.

Question: Mr. Goldrich, thank you so much for taking the time to sit with us today. I know you are leaving your post soon. How do you assess the accomplishments and challenges remaining?

Answer: Thank you very much for the chance to talk with you today. I've been in this position for three years, and so at the end of three years, I can see that there's a lot that we accomplished and a lot that we have left to do. But at the beginning of a time I was here, we had just completed a review of our Syria policy, and we saw that we needed to focus on reducing suffering for the people in Syria. We needed to reduce violence. We needed to hold the regime accountable for things that are done and most importantly, from the US perspective, we needed to keep ISIS from reemerging as a threat to our country and to other countries. At the same time, we also realized that there wouldn't be a solution to the crisis until there was a political process under resolution 2254, so in each of these areas, we've seen both progress and challenges, but of course, on ISIS, we have prevented the reemergence of the threat from northeast Syria, and we've helped deal with people that needed to be repatriated out of the prisons, and we dealt with displaced people in al-Hol to reduce the numbers there. We helped provide for stabilization in those parts of Syria.

Question: I want to talk a little bit about the ISIS situation now that the US troops are still there, do you envision a timeline where they will be withdrawn? Because there were some reports in the press that there is a plan from the Biden administration to withdraw.

Answer: Yeah. So right now, our focus is on the mission that we have there to keep ISIS from reemerging. So I know there have been reports, but I want to make clear that we remain committed to the role that we play in that part of Syria, to the partnership that we have with the local forces that we work with, and to the need to prevent that threat from reemerging.

Question: So you can assure people who are saying that you might withdraw, that you are remaining for the time being?

Answer: Yes, and that we remain committed to this mission which needs to continue to be pursued.

Question: You also mentioned the importance of humanitarian aid. The US has been leading on this. Are you satisfied with where you are today on the humanitarian front in Syria?

Answer: We remain committed to the role that we play to provide for humanitarian assistance in Syria. Of the money that was pledged in Brussels, we pledged $593 million just this past spring, and we overall, since the beginning of the conflict, have provided $18 billion both to help the Syrians who are inside of Syria and to help the refugees who are in surrounding countries. And so we remain committed to providing that assistance, and we remain keenly aware that 90% of Syrians are living in poverty right now, and that there's been suffering there. We're doing everything we can to reduce the suffering, but I think where we would really like to be is where there's a larger solution to the whole crisis, so Syrian people someday will be able to provide again for themselves and not need this assistance.

Question: And that's a perfect key to my next question. Solution in Syria. you are aware that the countries in the region are opening up to Assad again, and you also have the EU signaling overture to the Syrian regime and Assad. How do you deal with that?

Answer: For the United States, our policy continues to be that we will not normalize with the regime in Syria until there's been authentic and enduring progress on the goals of resolution 2254, until the human rights of the Syrian people are respected and until they have the civil and human rights that they deserve. We know other countries have engaged with the regime. When those engagements happen, we don't support them, but we remind the countries that are engaged that they should be using their engagements to push forward on the shared international goals under 2254, and that whatever it is that they're doing should be for the sake of improving the situation of the Syrian people.

Question: Let's say that all of the countries decided to talk to Assad, aren’t you worried that the US will be alienated in the process?

Answer: The US will remain true to our own principles and our own policies and our own laws, and the path for the regime in Syria to change its relationship with us is very clear, if they change the behaviors that led to the laws that we have and to the policies that we have, if those behaviors change and the circumstances inside of Syria change, then it's possible to have a different kind of relationship, but that's where it has to start.

Question: My last question to you before you leave, if you have to pick one thing that you need to do in Syria today, what is it that you would like to see happening today?

Answer: So there are a number of things, I think that will always be left and that there are things that we will try to do, to try to make them happen. We want to hold people accountable in Syria for things that have happened. So even today, we observed something called the International Day for victims of enforced disappearances, there are people that are missing, and we're trying to draw attention to the need to account for the missing people. So our step today was to sanction a number of officials who were responsible for enforced disappearances, but we also created something called the independent institution for missing persons, and that helps the families, in the non-political way, get information on what's happened. So I'd like to see some peace for the families of the missing people. I'd like to see the beginning of a political process, there hasn't been a meeting of the constitutional committee in two years, and I think that's because the regime has not been cooperating in political process steps. So we need to change that situation. And I would, of course, like it's important to see the continuation of the things that we were talking about, so keeping ISIS from reemerging and maintaining assistance as necessary in the humanitarian sphere. So all these things, some of them are ongoing, and some of them remain to be achieved. But the Syrian people deserve all aspects of our policy to be fulfilled and for them to be able to return to a normal life.