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Saudi Arabia interested in strong Russia - Kuwaiti oil market expert

According to Al-Shatti, many analysts tend to believe Saudi Arabia is using its positions on the global oil market to blight Russia

KUWAIT CITY, February 5. /TASS/. Saudi Arabia is interested in Russia’s remaining a strong state, Abdul Majid Al-Shatti, a member of Kuwait's Supreme Petroleum Council, told TASS on Thursday.

According to Al-Shatti, many analysts tend to believe Saudi Arabia is using its positions on the global oil market to blight Russia. "They /Saudi Arabia/ are not interested in that - to see a weak Russia. They don’t want to live in a unipolar world. A strong Russia is in their interests," he said.

A publication in the New York Times on February 3 claimed Saudi Arabia had been trying to pressure Moscow to abandon support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, "using its dominance of the global oil markets." The newspaper said "it is unclear how explicitly Saudi officials have linked oil to the issue of Syria during the talks." But, as follows from the publication Saudi officials say that they think they have some leverage over Russia because of "their ability to reduce the supply of oil and possibly drive up prices."

Many experts share the opinion that Riyadh was pursuing the policy towards lowering oil prices to have some benefits on the political arena. This stance however has many opponents too.

Notably, Saudi Minister of Petroleum Ali Al-Naimi said back in mid-December 2014 that the policy of influencing the oil market in a bid to derive political dividends was erroneous.

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