Clinton in Riyadh to Push for End to Crackdown in Syria
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Riyadh Friday for talks with Saudi leaders as she kicked off a two-country tour aimed at raising pressure on the Syrian regime, the U.S. embassy there said.
"Mrs. Clinton has arrived in Riyadh for talks with senior Saudi officials," an embassy spokesman said.
The U.S. State Department said earlier this week Clinton would meet Friday in Riyadh with Saudi King Abdullah and Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.
On Saturday, she is due to meet with ministers of Saudi Arabia's five Gulf Arab neighbors -- Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman -- before engaging in broader meetings Sunday with Arab, Turkish and Western officials in Istanbul.
The Friends of Syria meeting in Turkey follows the inaugural one Clinton attended in Tunis at the end of February -- a response to Western and Arab failure to win Russian and Chinese backing at the U.N. Security Council.
Aides said Clinton will discuss how to make President Bashar Assad comply with a new plan to end the crackdown on a pro-democracy movement, study further sanctions against his regime and consider ways to aid the opposition who will be in Istanbul.
Her visit comes a day after Assad said he would "spare no effort" for the success of U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's six-point peace plan but said the proposal would only work if "terrorist acts" by foreign powers stopped.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner described the president's remarks as "discouraging" and urged Assad to halt the violence immediately.
Source: Agence France Presse
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