A royal wedding paves way for cautious Saudi-Jordanian rapprochement
Crown Prince Hussein’s engagement to Saudi national Rajwa al-Saif will provide ‘new impetus’ for Amman-Riyadh relations, analysts say
25 August 2022
Amman, Jordan — The engagement of Jordan‘s Crown Prince Hussein to Saudi Arabian Rajwa al-Saif can help cool tensions between the neighbouring kingdoms, analysts have said, but it’s unlikely to reconcile differences.
The engagement ceremony took place at Saif’s home in Riyad, in the presence of several members of the bride-to-be’s family, as well as Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Queen Rania and other Jordanian royals.
Saif, 28, could become Jordan’s first queen of Saudi descent. She was born and raised in Riyadh and received her higher education at the College of Architecture at Syracuse University in New York, according to Jordanian local news. Crown Prince Hussein, who is also 28, studied at Georgetown University in Washington DC.
Following the engagement announcement, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called his Jordanian counterpart to congratulate the couple and wish them success and a happy life, Saudi state media reported.
The royal engagement comes amid a thaw in Saudi-Jordan relations, after years of tension due largely to divergent views on regional conflicts, struggles over Jordanian custodianship of Jerusalem’s holy sites and alleged Saudi links to a coup attempt that almost destabilised Jordan last year.
Prior to this year’s July Jeddah Summit, King Abdullah, accompanied by Crown Prince Hussein, had only made one official visit to Saudi Arabia in 2021, since his last visit in October 2019.
A month before the summit, Mohammed bin Salman visited Jordan for the first time in over five years, where he expressed keenness to strengthen relations. King Abdullah bestowed the Saudi crown prince with a medal to highlight the two kingdoms’ “deep-rooted” ties, according to Jordanian state media.
The Jordanian crown prince’s engagement to Saif provides a “new impetus” for Jordan-Saudi relations to continue to grow, Khaled Shneikat, head of the Jordanian Political Science Society, told MEE.
“The [next] days will show us if there are results; but initially, a marriage of this kind will have an impact on strengthening relations between the two countries and increased rapprochement,” Shneiket stated.