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Saudi Arabia shelved plans for Mohammed bin Salman to visit London in the past few days, according to UK officials, shortly before the crown prince hosted Vladimir Putin in Riyadh.
UK and Saudi officials have been in discussions about a visit by the crown prince this year for months, said officials from both countries. UK officials said they had been working towards December 3 as a possible arrival date.
The provisional plan was delayed last week, the UK officials said. Putin met the crown prince in Riyadh on Wednesday December 6 after visiting the UAE, the Russian president’s first trip to the region since launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Senior Conservative MPs said the proximity of the postponement of the crown prince’s trip to London and Putin’s visit raised questions about the strength of the UK’s relationship with Saudi Arabia.
Saudi officials said scheduling issues had long complicated the Saudi royal’s plans to visit the UK this year and dismissed any connection between the delay and his hosting Putin in Riyadh.
In October, Sunak visited Saudi Arabia and met Prince Mohammed. Saudi officials described the meeting as “excellent and productive”.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, told the Financial Times that the recent postponement of Prince Mohammed’s visit was a “snub”.
He added it was “astonishing” that the crown prince would welcome Putin after he ordered the invasion of a neighbouring country and said there was a risk of Britain and Saudi Arabia’s other western allies being “played for fools”.
Prince Khalid bin Bandar, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to London, told the Financial Times that “anyone familiar with the UK-Saudi relationship will know that the suggestion of a snub is nonsense”.
“The relationship is as strong as it has ever been and will remain so. Those wishing to interpret things differently are sorely mistaken,” he added.
The FT revealed in July that Rishi Sunak, prime minister, had extended an invitation to the crown prince to visit this autumn and that the trip had initially been expected to take place in October or November.
Scheduling issues had meant the visit had not taken place during those months, according to officials from both countries.
Robert Courts, a senior Tory MP, warned this month’s postponement was “a concern because it suggests a UK diplomatic failure in the face of a co-ordinated diplomatic offensive by Putin”.
He added: “The UK should urgently review the resources and strategy behind its foreign and defence policy to prevent the slide of states towards our strategic competitors.”
Courts, former chair of the Commons defence select committee, made the comments before his appointment as UK solicitor-general on Thursday.
A UK Foreign Office spokesperson said: “It is not for the UK to comment on the diplomatic engagements of other countries. We work closely with Saudi Arabia across a range of areas, including on providing support to Ukraine and addressing the current crisis in Israel.”
Sunak’s invite to Prince Mohammed this year signalled the UK’s desire to attract Saudi investment and deepen relations five years after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
The US in 2021 said Prince Mohammed had approved an operation to “capture or kill” Khashoggi in Turkey, which the Saudi government denied.
British officials said the UK continued to have a strong relationship with Saudi Arabia despite the delay in the crown prince’s visit.
They noted that defence secretary Grant Shapps and then-foreign secretary James Cleverly had visited the kingdom since October to discuss the Israel-Hamas conflict, in addition to Sunak.
Lord David Cameron, the present UK foreign secretary, also hosted his Saudi opposite number in London last month.
British officials argued there was nothing unusual about the Gulf states, including Saudi, speaking regularly with Russia, one of their partners within the Opec+ oil cartel.
The Gulf states have frequently voted alongside the west in backing UN resolutions supporting Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.
But David Lammy, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary, said the events around the crown prince’s visit to London were a sign that “Britain’s influence is tumbling on the global stage” under Sunak’s leadership.
Riyadh has declared a position of “active neutrality” on the Russia-Ukraine war, but has donated $410mn in aid to Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the kingdom in May to attend the Arab League summit and met the crown prince.
Additional reporting by Andrew England
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