JEDDAH: Prince Turki al-Faisal, who is also the former intelligence chief, said on Monday the US should blame itself for the rising energy prices, instead of putting the blame on others.
“When you say that Saudi Arabia has not budged on the issue of the oil problems that America is facing, basically America itself is the reason for the state that they’re in because of their energy policy,” Faisal told the state-run Arab News, as reported by The Middle East Eye news portal.
US President Biden Called for the kingdom of Saudi Arabia to increase production after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that caused the rise in energy prices, with the national average price for gasoline in the US hitting a record high in March of $4.17 a gallon.
Faisal, who is also the former US ambassador and now chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies based in Riyadh, said “President Biden made it a policy of the US government to cut all links to…the oil and gas industry, and he curtailed the oil production and gas production in the US…that has helped bring up the prices of oil.”
Even though the US has emerged as one of the world’s biggest oil producers, Saudi Arabia supplies the US with about five percent of its crude oil and petroleum imports.
Saudi Arabia is facing threats to the stability and security of the Gulf region, especially when Iran’s influence in Yemen and its use of the Houthis as a tool “not only to destabilize Saudi Arabia, but also affect the security and stability of the international sea lanes” along the Red Sea, the Gulf and the Arabian Sea, Prince Turki Al-Faisal told Arab News,
“The fact that President Biden delisted the Houthis from the terrorist list has emboldened them and made them even more aggressive in their attacks on Saudi Arabia, as well as on the UAE,” he added.
