Paris—French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday hosts Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for talks in Paris, seeking to nudge the de-facto leader of the oil-rich kingdom into more full-throated support of Ukraine against the Russian invasion.
The visit of the 37-year-old, widely known as “MBS”, comes less than a year after his last visit to the Elysee Palace and underlines the warm relationship between Paris and Riyadh that has irked rights activists in the wake of the 2018 killing of Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi.
Meanwhile, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa arrived in Ukraine on Friday as part of a group of African leaders seeking to broker peace between Kyiv and Moscow, officials said.
Four presidents and three representatives are due to hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv before heading to Saint Petersburg on Saturday to meet his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
The high-profile diplomatic team hopes to bring to the table the voice of a continent that has been badly hit by rising grain prices and the wider impact on global trade since Russia invaded Ukraine last year.
Over their lunch at the Elysee Palace from 1115 GMT, Macron is also expected to seek support from MBS to find a solution in the search for a new president in Lebanon, a stalemate that is causing increasing exasperation for France.
His stay in France appears set to be a long one, with the crown prince due to attend a Paris summit on a New Global Financing Pact hosted by Macron on June 22-23.
On Monday, he will also attend an official Saudi reception for Riyadh’s candidacy to host Expo 2030, a bid for which Saudi wants strong French support.
The prince can reside comfortably in France, given he owns the opulent Chateau Louis XIV near Versailles outside Paris, a modern building that seeks to replicate the look of French imperial palaces.
“President Cyril Ramaphosa has arrived at the Nemichaeve train station,” the South African presidency tweeted.
Ramaphosa will be joined by Senegal’s Macky Sall and Zambia’s Hakainde Hichilema, plus Comoros President Azali Assoumani, who currently heads the African Union.
Three other leaders who had been due to join the trip—Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Congo-Brazzaville’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso—have pulled out of the visit and have sent other representatives instead.
A French presidential official, who asked not to be named, said Paris wanted MBS to understand the scale of the Ukraine conflict and “help us speed up the final outcome of the war, which means a victory for Ukraine on the ground”. AFP
