RIYADH: Washington’s top diplomat is among leaders expected at a Saudi-hosted economic summit set to begin on Sunday with a strong focus on the grinding war in Gaza, organisers said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be “coming in directly from his visits in China and on his way to Israel,” Borge Brende, president of the World Economic Forum (WEF), told a press conference on Saturday in Riyadh. Other participants at the two-day WEF special meeting include Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and foreign ministers and prime ministers from across the Middle East and Europe.

These include foreign ministers from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the EU and prime ministers from Qatar, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, according to a WEF press release.

A total of 12 heads of state and government feature among the more than 1,000 participants, Brende said on Saturday. “There is some new momentum now in the talks around the hostages, and also for... a possible way out of the impasse we are faced with in Gaza,” Brende said, without elaborating.

“There will be discussions, of course, on the ongoing humanitarian situation in Gaza” and “regional aspects also with Iran will be discussed” during what “has all the prospects for becoming a very consequential meeting.”

Saudi officials fear the war in Gaza and a potential regional conflagration could stymie the Gulf kingdom’s ambitious Vision 2030 social and economic reform agenda, which is meant to lay the groundwork for an eventual post-oil future.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2024