Along with Saudi king, most Gulf rulers to skip US summit: "Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, a professor of political science at Emirates University, said Gulf leaders were staying away from the Camp David gathering to signal their displeasure over the nuclear talks. "I don't think they have a deep respect, a deep trust for Obama and his promises. There is a fundamental difference between his vision of post-nuclear-deal Iran and their vision," he said." - AP | Kerry to Meet With Putin in Russia on Tuesday: "Mr. Kerry’s visit is likely to be seen in Moscow as a vindication and a sign of the U.S. inability to deal with problems in Iran, Syria and Ukraine without Russian cooperation." - WSJ
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Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, a professor of political science at Emirates University, said Gulf leaders were staying away from the Camp David gathering to signal their displeasure over the nuclear talks.
"I don't think they have a deep respect, a deep trust for Obama and his promises. There is a fundamental difference between his vision of post-nuclear-deal Iran and their vision," he said. "They think Iran is a destabilizing force and will remain so, probably even more, if the sanctions are lifted. ... They're just not seeing things eye to eye."
...
Abdullah, the Emirati professor, said the Gulf ties with the United States remain strong, but they have been strained during Obama's tenure.
He said Obama is seen within the region as impersonal compared to his predecessors. He also noted that recent comments to The New York Times in which Obama warned that dissatisfaction at home was perhaps a bigger threat than Iran came across as unnecessary "lecturing."
"You just pre-empted the whole meeting with this kind of statement," he said.
Along with Saudi king, most Gulf rulers to skip US summitby By ADAM SCHRECK
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- It is not just the Saudi king who will be skipping the Camp David summit of U.S. and allied Arab leaders. Most Gulf heads of state won't be there....
By Afp
Published: 10:16 EST, 11 May 2015 | Updated: 10:17 EST, 11 May 2015
President Vladimir Putin is expected Tuesday to host US Secretary of State John Kerry for crucial talks in Sochi amid tensions over Ukraine, during the top US diplomat's first visit to Russia since the start of the crisis.
Ties between Moscow and Washington collapsed after Russia seized Crimea and buttressed separatists in eastern Ukraine but after a year of raging tensions signs are emerging that both Russia and the West may be ready to seek detente.
President Vladimir Putin has refused to budge on Ukraine but has signalled his readiness to mend ties with Washington and Brussels as Russia chafes under the burden of biting Western sanctions.
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The US State Department says John Kerry will meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin, who is spending the week at his summer residence in Sochi ©Tony Karumba (AFP/File)
The US State Department said on Monday that Kerry would meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and Putin, who is spending the week at his summer residence in Sochi.
"This trip is part of our ongoing effort to maintain direct lines of communication with senior Russian officials and to ensure US views are clearly conveyed," said spokeswoman Marie Harf.
It will be Kerry's first visit to Russia in two years.
"We expect that Secretary of State Kerry's visit to Russia will serve the normalisation of bilateral ties on which global stability depends to a large extent," the Russian foreign ministry said for its part.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov sounded coy however, refusing to immediately confirm Putin's meeting with Kerry.
Kerry's high-stakes visit comes as Russia appears to have put the worst of the fallout from the Ukraine crisis behind it, with the rouble rebounding somewhat and Putin enjoying popular support at home.
In a wide-ranging statement, the Russian foreign ministry said US companies wanted to do business in Russia despite Western sanctions and added that the political chill should not affect human ties.
"Even under pressure from the White House, American business is in no rush to leave our market," the foreign ministry said.
"Boeing, Ford, John Deere, Alcoa, Coca Cola, PepsiCo, Mars, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and other companies that have invested significant funds here would like to retain their position in Russia."
Putin himself used similar rhetoric when he called for an improvement in ties with Germany during Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to Moscow on Sunday.
"Entrepreneurs are pragmatic people, that's why they are not leaving the Russian market," Putin said.
- Ukraine to top agenda -
The Russian foreign ministry reeled off a litany of complaints about US policies ranging from abuse of Russian orphans by US adoptive parents to NATO's eastward expansion and the Ukraine crisis, a hot-button issue expected to top the agenda.
Last year's popular uprising in Ukraine that ousted a Kremlin-backed president sparked a diplomatic crisis and led Moscow to wrest the peninsula of Crimea from Kiev's control and support Russian-speaking separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Kiev and the West accuse Putin's Kremlin of masterminding the conflict that has killed more than 6,100 people in just over a year, and have slapped several rounds of sanctions against Russia.
An informed source told the Interfax news agency that Russia expected Washington to play a more high-profile role in resolving the Ukraine crisis.
"It's important that the United States begin to play a more constructive role in the Ukrainian settlement, that they force Kiev to enter into a direct dialogue with the Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic," the source said, referring to the rebel-controlled regions.
"Let's see what the Secretary of State will be able to offer in this context."
The source also said Moscow would urge Washington to refrain from supplying Kiev with lethal weapons.
"For us it's a principal issue."
Despite a truce brokered by the West and Putin in February, Kiev and the insurgents accuse each other of violating the ceasefire deal.
- 'Decades to restore ties' -
Kerry's visit comes after US President Barack Obama skipped Russia's celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in what was widely seen as a snub over Moscow's meddling in Ukraine.
Germany's Merkel, too, ducked out of attending the Red Square military parade on May 9 but visited Moscow on Sunday to pay tribute to the Soviet dead.
Putin pointedly thanked the Soviet Union's Western allies for their contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany in WWII during his Victory Day address and shunned overtly aggressive rhetoric.
The source, speaking to Interfax, said ties between Moscow and Washington had hugely suffered over the past year.
"Americans destroyed nearly everything," the source said. "Decades will be needed to restore bilateral ties."
From Sochi, Kerry will travel to Antalya, Turkey for a NATO meeting.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to budge on Ukraine but has signalled his readiness to mend ties with Washington ©Kirill Kudryavtsev (AFP)
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The state RIA Novosti news agency said John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov (pictured) are set to discuss the Ukraine crisis ©Alexander Nemenov (AFP/File)
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Ukraine and the West accuse Vladimir Putin's Kremlin of masterminding a conflict that has killed more than 6,100 people in just over a year ©Sergey Bobok (AFP/File)
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US President Barack Obama skipped Russia's celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in what was widely seen as a snub over Moscow's meddling in Ukraine ©Vasily Maximov (AFP/File)
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Moscow (AFP) - President Vladimir Putin is expected Tuesday to host US Secretary of State John Kerry for crucial talks in Sochi amid tensions over Ukraine, during the top US diplomat's first visit to Russia since the start of the crisis.
Ties between Moscow and Washington collapsed after Russia seized Crimea and buttressed separatists in eastern Ukraine but after a year of raging tensions signs are emerging that both Russia and the West may be ready to seek detente.
President Vladimir Putin has refused to budge on Ukraine but has signalled his readiness to mend ties with Washington and Brussels as Russia chafes under the burden of biting Western sanctions.
The US State Department said on Monday that Kerry would meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and Putin, who is spending the week at his summer residence in Sochi.
"This trip is part of our ongoing effort to maintain direct lines of communication with senior Russian officials and to ensure US views are clearly conveyed," said spokeswoman Marie Harf.
It will be Kerry's first visit to Russia in two years.
View gallery
Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to budge on Ukraine but has signalled his readiness to …
"We expect that Secretary of State Kerry's visit to Russia will serve the normalisation of bilateral ties on which global stability depends to a large extent," the Russian foreign ministry said for its part.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov sounded coy however, refusing to immediately confirm Putin's meeting with Kerry.
Kerry's high-stakes visit comes as Russia appears to have put the worst of the fallout from the Ukraine crisis behind it, with the rouble rebounding somewhat and Putin enjoying popular support at home.
In a wide-ranging statement, the Russian foreign ministry said US companies wanted to do business in Russia despite Western sanctions and added that the political chill should not affect human ties.
"Even under pressure from the White House, American business is in no rush to leave our market," the foreign ministry said.
View gallery
The state RIA Novosti news agency said John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov (picture …
"Boeing, Ford, John Deere, Alcoa, Coca Cola, PepsiCo, Mars, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and other companies that have invested significant funds here would like to retain their position in Russia."
Putin himself used similar rhetoric when he called for an improvement in ties with Germany during Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to Moscow on Sunday.
"Entrepreneurs are pragmatic people, that's why they are not leaving the Russian market," Putin said.
- Ukraine to top agenda -
The Russian foreign ministry reeled off a litany of complaints about US policies ranging from abuse of Russian orphans by US adoptive parents to NATO's eastward expansion and the Ukraine crisis, a hot-button issue expected to top the agenda.
View gallery
Ukraine and the West accuse Vladimir Putin's Kremlin of masterminding a conflict that has killed …
Last year's popular uprising in Ukraine that ousted a Kremlin-backed president sparked a diplomatic crisis and led Moscow to wrest the peninsula of Crimea from Kiev's control and support Russian-speaking separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Kiev and the West accuse Putin's Kremlin of masterminding the conflict that has killed more than 6,100 people in just over a year, and have slapped several rounds of sanctions against Russia.
An informed source told the Interfax news agency that Russia expected Washington to play a more high-profile role in resolving the Ukraine crisis.
"It's important that the United States begin to play a more constructive role in the Ukrainian settlement, that they force Kiev to enter into a direct dialogue with the Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic," the source said, referring to the rebel-controlled regions.
"Let's see what the Secretary of State will be able to offer in this context."
View gallery
US President Barack Obama skipped Russia's celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet vi …
The source also said Moscow would urge Washington to refrain from supplying Kiev with lethal weapons.
"For us it's a principal issue."
Despite a truce brokered by the West and Putin in February, Kiev and the insurgents accuse each other of violating the ceasefire deal.
- 'Decades to restore ties' -
Kerry's visit comes after US President Barack Obama skipped Russia's celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in what was widely seen as a snub over Moscow's meddling in Ukraine.
Germany's Merkel, too, ducked out of attending the Red Square military parade on May 9 but visited Moscow on Sunday to pay tribute to the Soviet dead.
Putin pointedly thanked the Soviet Union's Western allies for their contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany in WWII during his Victory Day address and shunned overtly aggressive rhetoric.
The source, speaking to Interfax, said ties between Moscow and Washington had hugely suffered over the past year.
"Americans destroyed nearly everything," the source said. "Decades will be needed to restore bilateral ties."
From Sochi, Kerry will travel to Antalya, Turkey for a NATO meeting.
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- President Vladimir Putin
- John Kerry
- Russia
- Ukraine
- eastern Ukraine
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WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry is traveling to Russia on Monday to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin and discuss whether it is possible for the two sides to work together on a political solution for the conflict in Syria, American officials said.
The meeting, which will be held on Tuesday in the Black Sea city of Sochi, represents a fresh attempt by the Obama administration to pursue a political solution to Syria after years of frustrated diplomacy and deepening violence there.
It is also another twist in the United States relations with Russia. The Obama administration has sometimes sought to isolate Mr. Putin because of his military intervention in Ukraine, but has also sought to carve out areas where the two sides might cooperate.
“This trip is part of our ongoing effort to maintain direct lines of communication with senior Russian officials and to ensure U.S. views are clearly conveyed,” said the State Department, which added that the subjects will include “a full range of bilateral and regional issues, including Iran, Syria and Ukraine.”
A look at the conflict that has dismembered Syria and inflamed the region with one of the world’s worst religious and sectarian wars.
OPEN Graphic
American and Russian officials have been worried that the fighters from their countries who have joined the ranks of Islamic militants in Syria could return home to carry out terrorist attacks. The recent setbacks President Bashar al-Assad’s troops had sustained have only underscored that the dangers posed by the militants may be growing.
But the Obama administration has previously sought to work with Russia on Syria without success. Two years ago, Mr. Kerry met with Mr. Putin in Moscow and announced that the United States and Russia would convene an international conference to try to end the war in Syria.
That peace conference, which was held under the United Nations auspices in early 2014, failed to make any headway when the delegation representing President Assad refused to discuss the formation of a transitional administration that would not include the Syria leader.
Robert Ford, who served as the senior envoy to the Syrian opposition at that conference, said that Russia’s reluctance to pressure the Assad government to make concessions had contributed to the impasse.
“In February 2014, the Russian delegation declined to lean on the Syrian delegation to negotiate a political solution, even though the U.N. secretary general’s invitation clearly stated that was the purpose of the negotiation,” said Mr. Ford, who has since retired from the State Department.
Another question is whether Russia still retains enough influence to prod the Assad government to negotiate. Russia, which has long supported the Syrian government, has supplied it with sophisticated arms and parts for its helicopters.
But Iran has provided more military and financial support, and has arranged for Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia backed by Tehran, to fight with Mr. Assad’s forces.
Two rounds of talks on the Syria crisis that Russia hosted in Moscow this year made no headway when the Assad government officials showed no flexibility and members of the moderate Syrian opposition refused to attend.
“The lack of any real progress in the Moscow talks” demonstrates “the constraints in getting Assad to go diplomatically,” said Andrew J. Tabler, an expert on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Mr. Kerry’ s visit to Sochi will not last long. After meeting with Mr. Putin on Tuesday, Mr. Kerry will travel to Turkey later in the day for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers. By Wednesday night, Mr. Kerry is scheduled to be back in the United States for President Obama’s Camp David meeting with Saudi and other Gulf state diplomats.
Mr. Kerry’s trip is taking place amid mounting concern over Russia’s policy toward Ukraine. Just last month, the State Department charged that the Russian was continuing to violate a February cease-fire accord by shipping heavy weapons to Ukrainian separatists and keeping some Russian forces in eastern Ukraine
“Clearly Russian-backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine are preparing for another round of military action that would be inconsistent with the Minsk Agreement,” Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter told Congress last week, referring to the cease-fire accord, which was negotiated by European powers with Russia and Ukraine.
To signal their displeasure over Russia’s continued military intervention in eastern Ukraine, Mr. Obama and other Western leaders did not attend celebrations on Saturday in Moscow that commemorated the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
But shortly after that event, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany traveled to Moscow to meet with Mr. Putin and Mr. Kerry is heading to Russia for his own meeting.
Just a year ago, aides to President Obama asserted that they could not envision a constructive relationship with Mr. Putin because of the use of military force in Ukraine and Cold War style rhetoric.
In practice, however, the Obama administration’s Russia policy has all along sought to identify areas of potential cooperation, such as in the Iran nuclear talks in which Mr. Kerry has worked with Sergey V. Lavov, the Russian foreign minister, even as the United States has imposed economic sanctions on Russia because of Ukraine.
Mr. Kerry is expected to build on that approach by discussing areas in which the two sides might work together in addition to Syria, such as North Korea, whose nuclear weapons and missile programs have rattled the international community.
Still, Mr. Kerry’s trip may spur criticism that the Obama administration is sending mixed messages to Mr. Putin
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WASHINGTON—Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia, on Tuesday, the first U.S. Cabinet-level visit to Russia since the Ukraine crisis flared last year.
Mr. Kerry’s visit to the Black Sea resort town comes as Western powers continue to complain about violations of a three-month old cease-fire agreement between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists. A meeting between Mr. Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel over the weekend produced little apparent progress on the crisis.
The State Department said Mr. Kerry will meet with Mr. Putin as well as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss the crisis, as well as Syria and Iran.
The Kremlin didn’t immediately confirm the meeting with Mr. Putin, though a spokesman had said last week one was possible.
In a statement announcing the Lavrov-Kerry meeting, Russia’s Foreign Ministry blamed what it called the current “difficult period” in relations on “the targeted unfriendly actions of Washington.”
The ministry said it expects Mr. Kerry’s visit “to serve to normalize bilateral relations, on which global stability in large part depends.”
Mr. Kerry’s visit is likely to be seen in Moscow as a vindication and a sign of the U.S. inability to deal with problems in Iran, Syria and Ukraine without Russian cooperation.
The two sides are expected to discuss Ukraine, Yemen, Iran and Syria, Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing an unnamed diplomatic source, who also said that Russia hopes Mr. Kerry will bring “new proposals” for resolving the crisis in Ukraine. The source called his visit “important and symbolic” although no breakthrough is expected, according to RIA.
After the Obama administration was snubbed by Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, who indicated over the weekend that he wouldn't take part in a summit of Arab leaders in the U.S. this week, the talks in Sochi could take on more weight. King Salman’s decision to skip the summit at Camp David and send Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman signaled that key Arab states aren’t fully on board with the talks between six world powers and Iran to curtail its nuclear program.
Mr. Kerry last visited Russia in May 2013, shortly ahead of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s arrival there, which culminated in Moscow’s decision to grant the leaker asylum.
Mr. Obama attended a Group of 20 summit in September 2013 in St. Petersburg, but later canceled plans for a summit with Mr. Putin in Moscow during the same trip after Mr. Snowden was granted asylum.
Mr. Kerry had planned to travel to Russia in January to meet with Mr. Putin and discuss the Ukraine crisis but canceled the trip.
In Moscow on Sunday, Ms. Merkel and Mr. Putin said the second Ukraine cease-fire reached in February was the only way forward in the conflict but stuck to positions they had held before their talks.
Ms. Merkel offered tough comments criticizing the illegality of Russia’s annexation of Crimea as well as ongoing fighting in Eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces. She urged Mr. Putin to use his influence to encourage separatists to abide by the cease-fire agreement reached in February. Mr. Putin said Ukraine should negotiate directly with rebels in the country’s east and stressed that Kiev should accelerate political changes that would grant parts of the east more autonomy.
Write to Felicia Schwartz at Felicia.Schwartz@wsj.com
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MOSCOW (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Russia on Tuesday to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin for talks aimed at mending relations driven to new post-Cold War lows by disagreements over Ukraine and Syria....
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says Russia and pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine now have the capacity to launch new attacks "with very little warning" after a sustained military buildup.
German chancellor issues
call over ceasefire violations by separatists in eastern Ukriane during during visit to Moscow
call over ceasefire violations by separatists in eastern Ukriane during during visit to Moscow
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has called for Russia to do more to persuade separatists in eastern Ukraine to abide by a ceasefire that has been strained in recent weeks.
Speaking alongside the Russian president,
Vladimir Putin, during a visit to Moscow, Merkel said the past week’s creation of groups to negotiate a lasting settlement of the dispute provided a “glimmer of hope” but that progress was lacking elsewhere.
Continue reading...Vladimir Putin, during a visit to Moscow, Merkel said the past week’s creation of groups to negotiate a lasting settlement of the dispute provided a “glimmer of hope” but that progress was lacking elsewhere.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russia has built up its forces on the border with Ukraine and sent more military hardware into eastern Ukraine, enabling pro-Russia separatists to launch attacks with little warning if they choose to do so, NATO's chief warned on Monday.
4 Arrested as Mississippi City Plans Memorial for 2 Slain Officers by webdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)
With lowered flags and prayers, a southern Mississippi city is mourning two police officers, while the four people arrested after their shooting deaths await an initial court appearance Monday. Red roses decorated a chain-link fence Sunday near the spot where officers Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate were killed, and worshippers remembered the men in a small brick church just a few dozen yards from the scene. "It's sad. It's just a tragedy," Dorothy Thompson said...
DUBAI/RIYADH (Reuters) - The Saudi king's absence from a regional summit to be hosted by President Barack Obama shows how Gulf states, displeased by what they see as U.S. indifference to Iranian meddling in the Arab world, may hesitate to bless any nuclear deal with Tehran.
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TBILISI (Reuters) - U.S. and Georgian forces began two weeks of military exercises in the South Caucasian republic on Monday, a move that is likely to irritate Georgia's former Soviet master Russia.
 Times of India |
Along with Saudi king, most Gulf rulers to skip US summit
Times of India DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: It is not just the Saudi king who will be skipping the Camp David summit of US and allied Arab leaders. Most Gulf heads of state won't be there. The absences will put a damper on talks that are designed to reassure key Arab ... Barack Obama struggling to ease Gulf fears on IranThe Australian Rulers of most Gulf nations to miss Camp David summit hosted by ObamaFox News War launched to foil Houthi 'terror plot' in region: KingArab News all 357 news articles » |
CAIRO (Reuters) - An Al Jazeera journalist on trial in Egypt has filed a lawsuit in a Canadian court accusing his employer of negligence and has demanded $100 million in compensation, his lawyer said on Monday.
A 1993 E. coli outbreak linked to Jack in the Box hamburgers sickened 700 people and drew new attention to the dangers of food-borne illness. More than 20 years later, how far have we come?
Produced by: Retro Report
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WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia announced on Sunday that its new monarch, King Salman, would not be attending meetings at the White House with President Obama or a summit gathering at Camp David this week, in an apparent signal of its continued displeasure with the administration over United States relations with Iran, its rising regional adversary.
As recently as Friday, the White House said that King Salman would be coming to “resume consultations on a wide range of regional and bilateral issues,” according to Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman.
But on Sunday, the state-run Saudi Press Agency said that the king would instead send Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi interior minister, and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the defense minister. The agency said the summit meeting would overlap with a five-day cease-fire in Yemen that is scheduled to start on Tuesday to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Arab officials said they viewed the king’s failure to attend the meeting as a sign of disappointment with what the White House was willing to offer at the summit meeting as reassurance that the United States would back its Arab allies against a rising Iran.
King Salman is expected to call Mr. Obama on Monday to talk about his last-minute decision not to attend the summit meeting, a senior administration official said on Sunday.
The official said that when the king met Secretary of State John Kerry in Riyadh last week, he indicated that he was looking forward to coming to the meeting. But on Friday night, after the White House put out a statement saying Mr. Obama would be meeting with King Salman in Washington, administration officials received a call from the Saudi foreign minister that the king would not be coming after all.
There was “no expression of disappointment” from the Saudis, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. “If one wants to snub you, they let you know it in different ways,” the official said.
Jon Alterman, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said King Salman’s absence was both a blessing and a snub. “It holds within it a hidden opportunity,” he said, “because senior U.S. officials will have an unusual opportunity to take the measure of Mohammed bin Salman, the very young Saudi defense minister and deputy crown prince, with whom few have any experience.”
But, Mr. Alterman added: “For the White House though, it sends an unmistakable signal when a close partner essentially says he has better things to do than go to Camp David with the president, just a few days after the White House announced he’d have a private meeting before everything got underway.”
Mr. Kerry met on Friday in Paris with his counterparts from the Arab nations that were invited to the summit meeting — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman — to discuss what they were expecting from the summit meeting, and to signal what the United States was prepared to offer at Camp David.
But administration officials said that the Arab officials had pressed for a defense treaty with the United States pledging to defend them if they came under external attack. But that was always going to be difficult, as such treaties — similar to what the United States has with Japan — must be ratified by Congress.
Instead Mr. Obama is prepared to offer a presidential statement, one administration official said, which is not as binding and which future presidents may not have to honor.
The Arab nations are also angry, officials and experts said, about comments Mr. Obama recently made in an interview with The New York Times, in which he said allies like Saudi Arabia should be worried about internal threats — “populations that, in some cases, are alienated, youth that are underemployed, an ideology that is destructive and nihilistic, and in some cases, just a belief that there are no legitimate political outlets for grievances.”
At a time when American officials were supposed to be reassuring those same countries that the United States would support them, the comments were viewed by officials in the gulf as poorly timed, foreign policy experts said.
The Arab countries would also like to buy more weapons from the United States, but that also faces a big obstacle — maintaining Israel’s military edge. The United States has long put restrictions on the types of weapons that American defense firms can sell to Arab nations, in an effort to ensure that Israel keeps a military advantage against its traditional adversaries in the region.
That is why, for instance, the administration has not allowed Lockheed Martin to sell the F-35 fighter jet, considered to be the jewel of America’s future arsenal, to Arab countries. The plane, the world’s most expensive weapons project, has stealth capabilities and has been approved for sale to Israel.
In Paris on Friday, Mr. Kerry said that the United States and its Arab allies, which constitute the Gulf Cooperation Council, were “fleshing out a series of new commitments that will create between the U.S. and G.C.C. a new security understanding, a new set of security initiatives that will take us beyond anything that we have had before.”
The king is the latest top Arab official who will not be attending the summit meeting for delegations from members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
The United Arab Emirates is also sending its crown prince to the meetings, the officials said. The Emirati president, Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan, was never expected to attend because of health reasons, American and Arab officials said. Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman also will not be attending because of health reasons, officials said.
Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States, declined to say exactly what his government was pushing for from the United States when he spoke at a conference in Washington on Thursday.
“The last thing I want to say is ‘here’s what we need,’ ” he said at a panel discussion sponsored by the Atlantic Council in Washington. “That’s not the right approach. The approach is, let’s come here, let’s figure out what the problems are, how we can work together to address our needs.”
King Salman’s decision to skip the summit meeting does not mean that the Saudis are giving up on the United States — they do not have many other options, said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “As upset as the Saudis are, they don’t really have a viable alternative strategic partnership in Moscow or Beijing,” Mr. Sadjadpour said.
But, he added, “there’s a growing perception at the White House that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are friends but not allies, while the U.S. and Iran are allies but not friends.”
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The notion that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste” is credited to the American economist Paul Romer, who offered the thought a decade ago in a discussion about education. Mr. Romer’s observation has since been echoed in a variety of contexts. It could be applied as well to stewardship of this country’s food supply. Significant measures to keep Americans from being sickened, and sometimes killed, by what they eat have tended to come only after calamity strikes. Even then, in the view of many experts on food safety, the United States has wasted too many crises for comfort.
This pattern of horror-induced action is not new. An early consumer protection law, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, was inspired by stomach-turning descriptions of unsanitary meat processing plants in Upton Sinclair’s novel “The Jungle.” In 1938, Congress passed legislation giving the Food and Drug Administration enhanced powers after some food companies were found to have doctored rancid meat and vegetables to make them more palatable. Four years ago, after repeated outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, President Obama signed the Food Safety Modernization Act, which further strengthened the F.D.A. and sought to focus federal regulators more on preventing contamination, not just reacting after the fact.
Still, specialists in the food-safety field are hardly convinced that all is now fine because of a new law. Far from it. By the most recent estimates of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tainted food sickens 48 million Americans a year, sends nearly 128,000 of them to the hospital and leaves more than 3,000 dead. To explore enduring concerns, Retro Report, a series of video documentaries focused on major news stories of the past, zeroes in on one of the country’s worst moments in this regard. That was a 1993 flare-up of illness, largely in Western states, for which undercooked hamburgers served by the Jack in the Box fast-food chain were blamed. The culprit was a toxin-producing bacterium, Escherichia coli O157:H7, which can be menacing, especially for the young and the old. More than 700 people were sickened in the 1993 outbreak. Some suffered kidney failure. Four children died.
It proved to be one crisis that was not wasted. Procedures at processing plants were tightened to keep beef from coming into contact with feces or with the contents of cow intestines, where this particular strain of E. coli naturally resides. Jack in the Box raised its cooking temperature to 155 degrees from 140, which also became a federal standard to kill any bacteria that may have found their way onto hamburger patties.
Significantly, in 1994, the Food Safety and Inspection Service, a division of the Agriculture Department, declared E. coli O157:H7 to be an “adulterant.” That meant the tolerance level for it would be zero. It was the first time that a food-borne organism had been so labeled, making it no different from any foreign matter — say, a chemical or cigarette ash — that might contaminate a batch of ground beef. Now, at the first sign of E. coli, the food would be automatically subject to recall. In 2011, this adulterant scarlet letter was extended to six less common strains of E. coli.
Within a decade of the Jack in the Box ordeal, recalls of tainted beef dwindled. But the troubles were not over. Outbreaks affecting other foods kept coming: spinach, lettuce, cantaloupes, unpasteurized apple juice. Nor was domestically raised produce the only concern. Imports account for an estimated 15 percent of the food that Americans consume, yet federal officials have often been unable to vouch for the safety practices of overseas growers and processors.
E. coli is not the lone villain. Salmonella bacteria sicken a million Americans a year and take 370 or more lives, according to C.D.C. estimates. Salmonella is, in fact, the country’s No. 1 food-borne killer. Chickens and eggs are particularly vulnerable; an outbreak in 2010 led to the recall of 500 million eggs. Unlike E. coli, salmonella is not classified as an adulterant by the Agriculture Department, though the F.D.A. sets its own rules and can order recalls of salmonella-tainted food. Whether normal cooking destroys every one of the pathogens that may linger is an open question.
As some food safety specialists see it, the oversight system is a study in dysfunction. “It’s slow to react to science — it’s slow to react to change,” Dr. David Acheson told Retro Report. Dr. Acheson, now an adviser to food companies, used to be the chief medical officer at the Food Safety and Inspection Service and at the F.D.A. A certain amount of political buck-passing may also be at work, as shown in an installment of “Frontline” that is scheduled to be broadcast on Tuesday on PBS. In that segment, which explores safety in the poultry business, the Agriculture Department and Congress essentially blame each other for the lack of action to label salmonella as an adulterant.
Part of the problem, some believe, is the balkanized nature of safety inspections. Most responsibilities fall to the F.D.A. and to the safety inspection service. But 13 federal agencies play lesser roles as well. Forming this bureaucratic alphabet soup are the C.D.C.; the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service; the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration; the Agricultural Marketing Service; the Agricultural Research Service; the Economic Research Service; the National Agricultural Statistics Service; the National Institute of Food and Agriculture; the National Marine Fisheries Service; the Environmental Protection Agency; the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau; United States Customs and Border Protection and — are you still with us? — the Federal Trade Commission.
The fragmentation is enough to arch eyebrows. The safety inspection service has jurisdiction over meat, poultry and processed eggs. The F.D.A. is responsible for nearly everything else — in all, roughly 80 percent of the nation’s food supply. How does this work out? Not always smoothly.
A frozen cheese and tomato pizza is the province of F.D.A. inspectors. But scatter slices of pepperoni across that pie, and the safety inspection service takes over. Eggs still in their shell? They are the F.D.A.’s concern. But if the eggs are cracked and whipped into some other product, the inspection service has the ball. Then there is the Agricultural Marketing Service setting quality standards for eggs — Grade AA, Grade A and so forth — but not checking at the same time for bacteria. That safety control is the F.D.A.’s job.
In February, the Obama administration sought to impose a measure of order by proposing that all these agencies be combined into a single entity: the Food Safety Administration, which would become part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Whether anything will actually change is uncertain. Congress must give its consent. Turf struggles among the agencies are unlikely to vanish overnight. And some consumer groups and food safety experts are not convinced that creating a giant bureaucracy is the magic wand that will make the system’s shortcomings suddenly disappear. There is a sobering lesson in the Food Safety Modernization Act, the law that bolstered the F.D.A. Four years later, that agency still struggles to get the money it needs to do the job right.
Over the past four years, Congress gave the F.D.A. less than half of the $580 million that it should have had, the Congressional Budget Office said last month.
Which brings us back to Mr. Romer and crises. Dr. Acheson, for one, says that nothing short of a catastrophe may be necessary to rattle officialdom sufficiently to redesign the safety system. Rather grimly, he told Retro Report, “We need — I hate to say it, but — bodies in the street before we get it.”
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