US President Donald Trump thanked Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday for hosting talks between Washington and Moscow this week, calling the Kingdom a “special place with special leaders.”
Speaking at a conference organized by the Future Investment Initiative Institute, Trump said it was “a tremendous honor” to be the first American president to address the FII Institute.
The conference Trump spoke at is being held in Miami, Florida, from Wednesday until Friday.
Launched in 2017, FII brings together investors, policymakers, government officials and international private sector executives from across the globe.
The event is an extension of the Kingdom’s plans to diversify its economy by bringing together changemakers and discussing partnerships and policies for and in a rapidly evolving landscape.
Trump asserted that the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, held in Saudi Arabia, represented an important development on the way to ending the war.
“I want to thank Saudi Arabia, but in particular, we have to thank Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for hosting these historic talks and talks that went very, very well,” Trump said.
The US President added: “We gotta get that war over with. You have to see the people that are dying... It’s young people from Russia and Ukraine mostly that are just being decimated.”
“Country of Peace”
Trump’s speech comes as his administration seeks to strengthen ties with its trusted partner in the Middle East, and on the eve of US-Russian talks in Saudi Arabia.
“Country of peace,” read a hashtag accompanying some social media posts about the Tuesday talks from government and state media accounts, according to The New York Times. Others had a hashtag calling the Kingdom “capital of world decisions.”
Meeting Trump’s handpicked envoys in Riyadh on Monday night, Prince Mohammed told them: “We would be more than glad to work with you and with President Trump and his administration. I believe we can achieve positive things, for Saudi Arabia and for many countries around the world.”
The US-Russian talks were attended by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
Meanwhile, Trump has intensified criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
“I love Ukraine, but Zelenskiy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump-Putin Summit
Trump has said the Kingdom was chosen for his potential first meeting with Putin since returning to the White House because of the two presidents’ relationship with Prince Mohammed.
The US President proposed the country in his phone call last week with Putin as a venue, according to Dmitri Peskov, Putin’s spokesman.
“We know the Crown Prince, and I think it’d be a very good place to be,” Trump said last week.
The Times mentioned the Saudi and US relationship demonstrated in late January, when Prince Mohammed told Trump that Riyadh intended to bolster its investment and trade with the United States by at least $600 billion over the next four years.
