Word: arabia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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There are few nations in the world whose stability and friendship are as important to the West and the U.S. in particular as Saudi Arabia, the desert kingdom that harbors nearly a quarter of the world's proven oil reserves and furnishes 20% of American crude oil imports. Its importance is matched only by its strategic vulnerability, but in recent months the Saudis have been taking strong measures to reinforce themselves. Among other things, they have been rushing the new Reagan Administration-successfully, it turns out-to provide them with more sophisticated and controversial weaponry-specifically, extra equipment...
...time Saudi Arabia seemed to be adrift, threatening to become the new sick man of the Middle East. Its chain of adversity began with the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty that divided the Arab world, in whose spirited leadership, at least, the Saudis, keepers of Mecca, have always felt a special role. Then came the Islamic revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran, and by implication threatened conservative Muslim regimes everywhere. At home, a fanatical band of orthodox Muslims seized the Sacred Mosque at Mecca and occupied it for two weeks before Saudi armed forces could dislodge them...
...attention to a situation that will probably remain deadlocked until the Israeli election on June 30, which is likely to bring in a new, more flexible government headed by Labor Party Leader Shimon Peres. Further, it seems probable that the Reagan Administration will agree to sell equipment to Saudi Arabia that would increase the range and bombing capacity of F-15 jets already purchased by that country, even though Israel opposes any military strengthening of its Arab neighbors...
...hand wringing as the cartel's jetabout ministers swoop into distant capitals to push up the price of oil. Yet when word leaked of a secret gathering in Geneva two weeks ago of six of OPEC's top ministers, who had assembled at the invitation of Saudi Arabia to discuss pricing and production strategy, the oil-consuming nations seemed distinctly more relaxed than in the past...
Indeed, a plan to tighten the market back up, was precisely what the six OPEC ministers had gathered in Geneva to discuss. At the meeting was not just Saudi Arabia's Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, whose nation accounts for almost half of the cartel's oil output, but representatives of Kuwait, Nigeria, Algeria, Indonesia and Venezuela as well...