"...Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has sent a private message to President Obama, ... delivered to the White House by the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel A. Al-Jubeir,... a former senior US official told The Envoy on condition of anonymity.
The exact subject of the correspondence remained opaque, but it was described as concerning a Saudi diplomatic initiative--possibly on Syria. The message was also described as substantive and "close-hold," meaning not widely briefed beyond a small circle of senior officials.
The Saudi ambassador has since left Washington again, a second former senior US official who works on the region told The Envoy.
The White House declined to comment Tuesday....
The Saudi monarch "may have responded to Obama's request for money for the PA, and he will no doubt have strong views about what's happening in Syria," the former diplomat said, adding that it's not so unusual for the king to pass messages to Washington through Jubeir....
"Given that the king is not a phone person and is still stung by Wikileaks, the shuttling is neither unusual nor surprising," one Washington Middle East analyst commented.
(The king's alleged reservations about normal diplomatic channels may have turned out to be vindicated. A July 2008 US diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks in recent days describes a medical evaluation of the Saudi monarch by a western physician said to have read Abdullah's medical file. "It was related that King Abdullah is 92 years old (born 1916), he remains a heavy smoker, regularly receives hormone injections and
'uses Viagra excessively,'" the cable, released by Wikileaks on September 1st,
stated.)
2 comments:
Uses Viagra? Now we know the source of the Viagra accusation against Gadhafi soldiers.
But frankly I don't believe that 92 year old king uses Viagra. It might be just a propaganda to make people believe that he is still in shape. Any serious doctor won't prescribe Viagra to a 92 year old...
95 years old now... can't have long left.
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