Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Crown Prince, has been invited to the UK, a government source claims.
According to the official diary, No. 10 would confirm the Prime Minister’s engagements in the usual way.
A different government source said there is no reason to think the visit won’t happen.
This would be the first visit since the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
At the time, the Western world condemned the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi Arabian regime.
US intelligence agencies came to the conclusion that the prince must have approved the killing despite the prince’s assertions that he was involved in it.
In recent months, UK politicians have expressed a desire for tighter ties with the kingdom. To diversify its economy away from oil, the country built an office in London for its trillion-pound investment fund.
Grant Shapps, the secretary of energy security, met with Saudi Arabia earlier this year to discuss expanding cooperation in areas like space, technology, and essential minerals.
Additionally, the administration has been considering whether to back a trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council. James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, recently visited Kuwait, Jordan, and Qatar.
In the course of discussions with Gulf officials about reducing dependency on Russian oil and gas, the then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson met the crown prince in the Saudi capital of Riyadh last year.
He was invited to the Queen’s burial in September, but declined, sending a senior Saudi royal in his stead.
Six months before to Mr. Khashoggi’s death, in March 2018, Theresa May was the prime minister when he last travelled to the UK.
The prince, who serves as the de facto head of state for the largest oil exporter in the world, received praise from Western leaders for implementing certain changes in the traditional Gulf state, such as removing the ban on women driving.
However, the murder of Mr. Khashoggi seriously harmed his standing internationally.