News report by Fawaz Esmairan JEDDAH, Feb 20 (KUNA) -- The recent US-Russian talks in Riyadh had highlighted the crucial role played by Saudi Arabia as a key mediator for world peace and security.
Saudi Arabia, in the past, played a pivotal role in ending crises and one of them was the Lebanese civil war, which lasted for 15 years and ended with the Taif Agreement in 1989.
With the three-year-long Russian-Ukrainian war, Saudi Arabia rose to the occasion and hosted the recent talks between the US and Russia on Tuesday to put an end to the conflict.
A statement by the Saudi Foreign Ministry welcomed the US-Russia summit aimed at peace between Russia and the Ukraine.
The statement added that as early as March third 2022, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman contacted both the Ukraine and Russia to find a political resolution to the issue at hand.
Fast forward to 2025, Riyadh hosted the summit attended by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, which put the Saudi capital as the initial venue for the road for peace between both parties of the war, Russia and the Ukraine.
Pivoting away from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Kingdom and long with partners are eyeing a solution for another alarming issue and that being the plight of the Palestinian people namely those in the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza war has showed how brutal the Israeli occupation war machine could be, committing crime after crime against the people of the Gaza Strip.
In this context, Saudi Arabia expressed unwavering support to the Palestinian people, stressing that Palestinian attaining their full rights in an independent state through the Arab peace initiative was key to bring security and calm in the Middle East.
As the bloody war on Gaza began back in October of 2023, Saudi Arabia urged the international community to put an end to the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinian people.
It held an extraordinary Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit in November of 2023 in Riyadh, which resulted in the formation of a committee that coordinated international efforts to end the war in the Gaza Strip.
Another Arab-Islamic summit was held in Saudi Arabia in 2024n also focusing on the Israeli aggression on Palestine and Lebanon.
In September of 2024, Saudi Arabia announced, on the sideline of the 79th UN General Assembly, the formation of an international coalition to push for the two-state solution in the Middle East compromising of countries from the Arab and Islamic worlds as well as European partners.
In October of the same year, Saudi Arabia host the first session of the international coalition, which saw the participation of over 90 countries, in addition to UNRWA with the aim of setting the course of a two-state solution.
As for what to come, Saudi Arabia will be hosting on Friday a small-scale Arab summit to address the US plans for displacing the Palestinian people especially those in the Gaza Strip with participating countries focusing in a viable Arab solution to this important and crucial matter.
The summit also would look into a unified stance on reconstructing the Gaza Strip without the needs to move Palestinians from their homes and lands. (end) fn.gta