CRAWFORD, April 25: US President George W. Bush took Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz on a tour of his beloved ranch here on Thursday after two hours of mostly one-on-one talks, the White House said.
The summit at Bush’s “Prairie Chapel” property had been scheduled to last a total of two hours, but the two leaders were still expected to sit down for a working lunch, according to White House national security spokesman Sean McCormack.
Earlier Prince Abdullah arrived in Waco, Texas, on Thursday on his way to this tiny town for talks on the Middle East with US President George W. Bush at his ranch.
The talks were expected to focus on the violence in the Middle East, with the Gulf state’s de facto ruler warning that continued US support for Israel threatens to erode bilateral ties.
The prince was scheduled to meet Bush — in what will be their first face-to-face encounter — for about an hour before the two sit down to a working lunch, according to US officials.
US Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and White House chief of staff Andy Card were to take part in the meetings, the officials said.
On Wednesday Vice President Dick Cheney and other top officials met Prince Abdullah in Houston amid US concern about the Saudi role in the Middle East crisis.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has just completed a trip to the region which failed in its goal of achieving a ceasefire, cited one area of concern — the possibility that money raised by a recent three-day Saudi telethon could be used to encourage Palestinian suicide bombings against Israel.
“It is a subject that I will be discussing with Saudi officials when I am with them tomorrow down at Crawford with the president,” Powell informed a Senate committee hearing on Capitol Hill.
For his part, Abdullah was expected to use his first face-to-face meeting with Bush to urge him to be more evenhanded in the Middle East conflict if he wants to keep friends in the region. Powell said U.S. officials had seen some indications, including an Arab newspaper advertisement handed to him by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, that said some of the money would be going to elements of Hamas.—AFP/Reuters
CRAWFORD, April 25: US President George W. Bush took Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz on a tour of his beloved ranch here on Thursday after two hours of mostly one-on-one talks, the White House said.
