The White House has released a transcript of both a joint press statement and the President’s Q&A with journalists that took place before the meeting.

In the press statement, both countries acknowledged the importance of the role Saudi Arabia is playing in the war against terror. Pointed out was the Riyadh Declaration

“which calls for, ‘fostering values of understanding, tolerance, dialogue, co-existence, and the rapprochement between
cultures. . . [and] for fighting any form of thinking that promotes hatred, incites violence, and condones terrorist crimes which can by no means be accepted by any religion or law.’”

Also on the agenda were oil production, Saudi accession to the WTO, Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, and of course the Israeli-Palestinian issue:

With regard to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia desire a just, negotiated settlement wherein two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace and security. We will continue our efforts to achieve this objective, and reiterate our support for the efforts of the Palestinian Authority to bring democracy, peace, and prosperity to all Palestinians. The United States thanks Crown Prince Abdullah for his bold initiative-adopted unanimously by the Arab Summit in 2002-that seeks to encourage an Israel-Palestinian and Israel-Arab peace. We believe that an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank will be a significant step forward toward implementation of the Road Map. It is our firm conviction that resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will remove a major source of tension and contribute to stability and progress in the region.

The statement ended with the following:

Finally, the United States and Saudi Arabia agree that our future relations must rest on a foundation of broad cooperation. We must work to expand dialogue, understanding, and interactions between our citizens. This will include programs designed to (1) increase the number of young Saudi students to travel and study in the United States; (2) increase our military exchange programs so that more Saudi officers visit the United States for military education and training; and (3) increase the number of Americans traveling to work and study in the Kingdom. The United States recognizes we must exert great efforts to overcome obstacles facing Saudi businessmen and students who wish to enter the United States and we pledge to our Saudi friends that we will take on this effort. A high-level joint committee has been established to be headed by the Saudi Foreign Minister and the U.S. Secretary of State that will deal with strategic issues of vital importance to the two countries.

The Arab News take on the meeting goes over the same points, with very little difference in emphasis, but does add that the Crown Prince will also be meeting with former President Clinton.

An Associated Press article manages to accentuate the negative by turning innocuous statements into refusals and snubs, however. When the President asks for the Saudis to increase oil production, he’s talking about long-term efforts, no anything that will suddenly produce an extra couple million barrels of oil tomorrow. The Saudis are already noted for pumping at full capacity now; to expand production means opening new wells, something that’s not done overnight. The article does note that Saudi advisor Adel Al-Jubeir points out that US refineries are a choke-point and a major factor in pricing. With nearly a dozen different standards for “gasoline” among the states, it’s actually not surprising that refineries are the bottleneck and that any problem with them immediately increases the price at the pump.

Another AP report cites Amb. Robert Jordan, who was my ambassador during my posting to Riyadh:

Despite the difficult matters, Robert Jordan, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said the stage was set for a much friendlier meeting than three years ago for Abdullah’s first visit to the ranch. For one thing, the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, a polarizing figure, is now gone – replaced by an elected president of the Palestinians, Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas will have his own meeting with Bush in the next few weeks.

Not so surpisingly, though, yet another AP industrial report notes:

Crude oil futures slipped Monday as President Bush and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah met, in part, to discuss possible ways to bring down high oil prices.

Light, sweet crude for June delivery was down 42 cents at $54.97 a barrel in afternoon trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Heating oil futures were down nearly a cent at $1.536 a gallon, while unleaded gasoline climbed 2.37 cents to $1.676 a gallon.

In London, Brent crude was down 10 cents at $54.90 on the International Petroleum Exchange.