Saudi Arabia's young crown prince has an ambitious list of to-dos: modernise his conservative kingdom, weaken Iran's hand across the Mideast and, this week, rehabilitate his country's image in the eyes of Americans.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, son of King Salman and heir to the throne, is opening a marathon tour of the United States with a stop in Washington, where he'll meet President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
He'll hold separate meetings with a long roster of influential U.S. officials, including the secretaries of defense, treasury and commerce, the CIA chief and congressional leaders from both parties.
Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and White House envoy Jared Greenblatt, who are drafting Trump's long-awaited Mideast peace plan, will also join the crown prince for dinner today, the Saudi Embassy in Washington said.
The visit comes as the United States and much of the West are still trying to figure out Prince Mohammed, better known by his initials MBS, whose sweeping program of social changes at home and increased Saudi assertiveness abroad has upended decades of traditional rule in Saudi Arabia.
The 32-year-old crown prince also has big economic plans, and over three weeks in the US he will meet businessmen in New York, tech mavens from Google and Apple Inc. in San Francisco, and entertainment bigwigs in Los Angeles. Other stops include Boston and Houston.
"This is not the real Saudi Arabia," Prince Mohammed said when asked by CBS News about the repressive version of Islam many outsiders associate with the kingdom. He said he was restoring the more tolerant, egalitarian society that existed before Saudi Arabia's ultraconservatives were empowered in 1979. "We were victims, especially my generation that suffered from this a great deal."
"The concerns expressed there are reflective of deep concerns by the American public at large," said Lori Plotkin Boghardt, a Gulf scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "The Saudis are very sensitive to this. They're certainly communicating with elite circles to discuss the measures they're taking to try to get humanitarian assistance in to Yemen."
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