The new Geneva? How Saudi Arabia Became a Power Broker

Each spring, the Rose of Taif blossoms, bathing the mountainous eastern region in Saudi Arabia in a sea of blazing pink.

- Lin Suling

The flowering season is short, lasting from late February to late April. Farmers must move fast to pick blooms by hand each morning and ship them to distilleries to create the rich nectar involved in making valuable rose oil, or attar in Arabic.

Just 150km away in Jeddah—the second-largest city in Saudi Arabia after capital Riyadh—a similarly labour-intensive endeavour is about to get under way as US diplomats led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio attempt to sit with their Ukrainian counterparts to boil down issues and distil a miracle of their own.

The task? To salvage a ceasefire deal between Ukraine and Russia that all but collapsed two weeks ago halfway around the world in Washington's Oval Office.

The kingdom is once again centre stage for talks on Ukraine, after Riyadh hosted the initial Russia-US talks in February, the first high-level meeting between the two sides since Moscow dispatched troops to Ukraine three years ago.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky is also expected to be in Saudi Arabia, but will not participate directly in the Jeddah talks.

In a world defined by big power rivalry and regional conflicts, Saudi Arabia has successfully sought to position itself as the nexus for various high-stakes international and regional exchanges.

With help from the Saudis, the US and Russia had—in August 2024—their largest prisoner swap since the end of the Cold War.

More recently, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation at an emergency meeting hosted by Saudi Arabia on March 7 adopted a counter-proposal to US President Donald Trump's plan to take over Gaza and turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East".