Agencies
Riyadh
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called for unity in the Gulf region during a visit to Saudi Arabia, his first foreign trip in his new role as the US top diplomat.
As the Gulf crisis lingers on, Pompeo arrived in Riyadh with a simple message: 'Enough is enough. The dispute needs to end.'
Speaking at a joint press conference with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al Jubeir on Sunday, Pompeo said,"Gulf unity is necessary and we need to achieve it."
"We are hopeful that they will, in their own way, figure out how to remove the dispute between them," Pompeo said.
Ahead of Pompeo's visit, US officials told reporters the US Secretary of State would urge Saudi leadership to resolve the Gulf crisis in a series of meetings, according to a senior State Department official who briefed reporters on the meetings, New York Times reported.
The ex-CIA chief had arrived in Riyadh a day earlier, shortly after Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen fired missiles at Saudi Arabia's southern city of Jizan, killing one person.
Officials said Pompeo called for an end to the blockade because the US believes it has enabled Iran to exploit disunity in the Gulf by enhancing its influence in Yemen and Syria, The Associated Press news agency reported.
"Confronting Iran, stabilising Iraq and Syria, defeating the last of Islamic State, and winding up the catastrophic civil war in Yemen are seen in Washington as increasingly urgent priorities that cannot be fully addressed without a united and more robust Arab response" the NY Times report said.
"The vast humanitarian crisis in Yemen has become such a keen concern on Capitol Hill that influential senators have begun discussing restrictions on arms sales to Saudi Arabia."
"Poor targeting by the Saudis in airstrikes, as well as the kingdom's blockade of Yemeni ports, have done much to worsen the humanitarian situation in Yemen, and Pompeo told Jubeir on Saturday that Yemen must have easy access to humanitarian and commercial goods, along with fuel, the State Department official said," the report added.