{"id":1747,"date":"2011-06-06T23:47:56","date_gmt":"2011-06-07T06:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=1747"},"modified":"2011-06-07T06:45:45","modified_gmt":"2011-06-07T13:45:45","slug":"obama-continues-to-pretend-bahrain-problem-doesnt-exist-in-nonmeeting-meeting-to-please-house-of-saud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=1747","title":{"rendered":"Obama continues to Pretend Bahrain problem doesn’t exist, will not host non-meeting that he will have with Crown Prince al Khalifa"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 6, 2011, 7:58 PM ET
\nObama to Meet Bahrain\u2019s Crown Prince
\nBy Carol E. Lee and Jay Solomon<\/p>\n

President Barack Obama will meet with the crown prince of Bahrain at the White House on Tuesday, an administration official said. But in a show of how delicate relations with the U.S. ally have become, the sit-down is not officially on the president\u2019s schedule.<\/p>\n

Instead Mr. Obama will \u201cdrop by\u201d a meeting that Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has Tuesday afternoon with National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, the administration official said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The White House said last week that senior officials would use Prince Salman\u2019s visit to push for political reforms in Bahrain, where the government\u2019s harsh response to uprisings has created a diplomatic challenge for Washington, because of the Khalifa family\u2019s role in helping U.S. efforts to combat terrorism and Iran\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n

Last week, a senior administration official said the White House views Prince Salman as \u201ca serious interlocutor\u201d and believes there is \u201cvalue in engaging with him directly.\u201d The official said the White House sees as a \u201cpositive sign\u201d the recent call from Bahrain\u2019s King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa for a national dialogue.<\/p>\n

In a speech at the State Department last month, Mr. Obama criticized the crackdown in Bahrain, including the government\u2019s detainment of hundreds of political prisoners.<\/p>\n

It is unclear how long the president will spend with the crown prince on Tuesday. The White House does not plan to open any portion of the meeting to media coverage. The administration official said the White House will issue a written statement afterwards. …source<\/a><\/p>\n

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June 6, 2011, 7:58 PM ET Obama to Meet Bahrain\u2019s Crown Prince By Carol E. Lee and Jay Solomon President Barack Obama will meet with the crown prince of Bahrain at the White House on Tuesday, an administration official said. But in a show of how delicate relations with the U.S. ally have become, the more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[1155],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1747"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1749,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747\/revisions\/1749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}