The details of the meeting between the king of Saudi Arabia and Putin (Video/Photo)

Russian leadership has been waiting for a long time to visit Moscow Saudi King Salman, Alzeera” reported.

An official visit was first mentioned in the first half of 2015 when President Vladimir Putin, during a telephone conversation, invited the new king to visit Russia.

Since then, the king's visit has been planned and postponed several times. In the last six months, Salman's date was reviewed three times: first, he was expected to be in Moscow in mid-July, shortly after the G-20 meeting in Hamburg, then in early August and late October.

When the dates of Salman's visit to Moscow were finally confirmed, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubair called the visit <x0historic “”. This was a fully justified description, as the story of Russian-Saudi relations is very dramatic.

The Soviet Union was the first country to recognise the independence of the state created by King Abdulaziz. In 1938, however, the Soviet leadership executed its envoy in Riyadh, Karim Khacimov, a close friend of Saudi King, where diplomatic relations between the two countries collapsed. Diplomatic relations were restored only after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the founding of the Russian Federation in 1991.

As a result of this long pause in diplomatic relations, and the very difficult period of normalisation that followed, a Saudi king had never visited the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation to date.

Saudi Arabia's new crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, was still right when he said during his last trip to Moscow in May 2017 that “relations between Saudi Arabia and Russia are going through one of the best times”.

In the last two years, the crown prince worked personally toward improving relations between the two countries and had a certain level of success.

He regularly engaged in dialogue with Moscow, and he kept the communications channels open even when Russia began its military campaign in Syria. From this point of view, the current ease of tensions between countries, regardless of their regional interests, is largely due to Mohammad bin Salman's efforts.

When Mohammed bin Salman began reforms of “Vision 2030”, it signaled a change in the traditional way of life in Saudi Arabia and an exit from the country's “zone comfort”. By doing so, the new crown prince risked the alienation not only of the Muslim clergy and Saudi elites but also of the vast parts of the Saudi population, who feared that they would maintain the costs of these unpopular economic reforms.

Moscow's Financial Interests

On the other hand, Moscow is interested in strengthening the financial component of Saudi-Russian relations. The Russian leadership has repeatedly expressed its dissatisfaction with the fact that most agreements affecting economic co-operation, as well as military-technical, remain at the Memorandium of Understanding (MoU).

The only exception from this rule is the agreement reached under the OPEC for reducing oil production and stabilising oil prices.

In Moscow, King Salman's visit is expected to end the era of prejudice agreements. The parties are expected to sign the first contract to supply Russian weapons to Saudi Arabia.

The total conditions of this $3.5 billion contract were accepted this summer.

King Salman's visit to Moscow may mark a turning point for the desired influx of Saudi investments in Russia.

This summer, Saudi Ambassador to Russia Ibrahim al-Rassi visited a number of Northern Caucasus republics, where he praised the withdrawal of their investments for the kingdom.

Moreover, it is expected that the Saudi Public Investment Fund will start working at its representative office in Russia after the summit results.

However, Russia and Saudi Arabia have begun to assess relations with each other, preferring pragmatic co-operation with costs from ideological confrontation. /Periscopi/