King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia received Secretary of State John Kerry, on November 4th 2013. It would seem that the head of Saudi intelligence services, Prince Bandar, did not assist the meeting, while one of his adversaries and his predecessor, Prince Muqrin, was present.

At the end of the meeting, Foreign Affairs Minister Prince Saud al-Faysal and his US counterpart gave a press conference during which they tried to play down their disagreement. At variance with their earlier statements and threats, both men declared that their tactical differences would not undermine relations between their two countries.

The kingdom hoped to attack Syria in September with the help of the United-States. The Vice-Minister of Defence had installed himself in Jordan where many tanks had already been transferred. It had been planned that a column of tanks, of which the first elements were to be manned by crews recruited among the Syrian refugees, would enter Syria and ’’free’’ Damascus. The Saudi army was to have been protected by the US Air Army. However, the project was suddenly aborted after Washington’s refusal to bomb the country. Saudi Arabia responded by announcing retaliatory measures against the US and took steps to boost the man power, funding and equipment for Al-Qaida in Syria.

We still don’t know what means of pressure were used by John Kerry to put the Saudis back in their place  [1].

Translation
Alizée Ville

[1] « Saudi suicide », by Thierry Meyssan, Al-Watan/Voltaire Network, October 28th 2013.