White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and his team are headed to Saudi Arabia and Qatar this week for talks , a senior administration official said on Sunday.
Kushner is to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman in the Saudi city of Neom, and Qatari leaders in Doha the coming days, he said.
Kushner will be joined by Middle East envoys Avi Berkowitz and Brian Hook and Adam Boehler, chief executive of the US International Development Finance Corp.
The senior administration official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, declined to give more details of Kushner's trip for security reasons.
The official said Kushner met at the White House last week with the Kuwaiti foreign minister, Sheikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah.
Kuwait is seen as critical in any effort to resolve a three-year rift between Qatar and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, which comprise the GCC, cut diplomatic ties with Qatar in 2017 and imposed a boycott over allegations that Qatar supported extremism, a charge it denies.
Kushner's trip comes after the killing on Friday of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in Tehran by unidentified assailants.
Western and Israeli governments believe Fakhrizadeh was the architect of a secret Iranian nuclear programme.
US president-elect Biden has said he will rejoin the international nuclear pact with Iran that Trump quit in 2018 — and work with allies to strengthen its terms — if Tehran first resumes strict compliance.
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