Obama visit: less pomp, more circumstance

It is still too early to say whether US President Barack Obama’s much-anticipated 28 March meeting with King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz Al-Saud will bear fruit, and relieve the tensions between the long-standing allies. The two men spent more than two hours together at the king’s ranch at Rawdat Khuraim, north-east of Riyadh, and discussion was – according to a senior US administration official – honest and frank. “This was not a contentious meeting. It was a good meeting,” the official said.