The GCC includes Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Saudi Arabia. In addition to joint talks with the council ministers, Lavrov is also expected to hold bilateral contacts on Monday.
The previous meeting of the Russia-GCC format was held in Moscow in July 2023: the participants in the dialogue noted the growth of bilateral trade and other economic indicators since the inception of this format. As Lavrov stated at the time, the total trade in 2022 exceeded $11 billion, compared to $3.7 billion in 2011, when this format was introduced.
The ministers also emphasized their interest in further expanding economic ties, also touching upon international agenda and discussing, among other things, a number of crises — in Ukraine, Yemen and Syria, as well as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
At that time, the latter did not have a serious escalation associated with the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 and the subsequent Israel's Operation Iron Swords in the Gaza Strip.
It is expected that the ministers will discuss this issue during the meeting, especially given the ongoing attempts to stop the conflict and secure the release of the hostages: at the end of August, negotiations were held in Cairo and Doha with the mediation of Egypt, the United States and Qatar.
Also, a number of countries of GCC states participated in resolving a number of pressing issues concerning Russia's relations with other countries.
For example, Saudi Arabia facilitated the Russian-US prisoner exchange, which Vladimir Putin had mentioned after it happened in August.
Qatar is participating in the humanitarian process between Russia and Ukraine to return children to their homeland.
The UAE acted as an intermediary in the exchange of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine, as well as prisoners between Russia and the United States — the exchange of US basketball player Brittney Griner for Russian Viktor Bout took place at the Abu Dhabi airport.
Lavrov's visit to Riyadh also takes place against the backdrop of questions about the full participation of Saudi Arabia in BRICS, where Russia is presiding this year.
As Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov noted, Moscow received a signal from its Saudi colleagues that their internal processes related to the assessment of the official invitation to Saudi Arabia to join BRICS had not yet been fully completed, due to which in some cases Saudi representatives do not participate in the full range of events of the association. Nevertheless, according to the diplomat, Saudi Arabia, which joined the association in 2024, participates in BRICS, this is an indisputable fact.