UK conservation and heritage experts will help to conserve cultural landmarks in Saudi Arabia as part of a new bilateral partnership, the department for culture, media and sport (DCMS) announced yesterday (9 December).
The move comes as the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, visits the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on an official state trip designed to drum up investment in Britain.
According to the DCMS, the heritage body Historic England is finalising a new deal with the Saudi Heritage Commission focused on cultural heritage and conservation. “The programme of cooperation will see heritage experts from the UK and Saudi Arabia sharing their knowledge and skills to support the preservation of cultural landmarks in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” a statement confirmed.
The UK will also market AlUla in northwest Saudi Arabia as part of the agreement, with UK institutions playing a key role in helping the ancient city “to become a world-class culture hub and tourist hotspot”.
The partnership with AlUla, which will run for five years, will see the UK share its expertise with the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) across tourism, hospitality and heritage preservation. “The aim of the RCU is to drive two million tourists per year to AlUla by 2035, while generating $32bn for its economy,” says the DCMS, which is working with the Department for Business and Trade on the AlUla initiative.
The move indicates the UK’s willingness to strengthen ties with Saudi Arabia following France’s deepening partnership with the Middle Eastern country over the past decade. Both countries signed a bilateral agreement in 2018, hailed as “historic” by the Saudi media, which focuses on a proposed network of future museums and archaeological sites around a museum of Arabic civilisation at the city of AlUla.
As part of a new bilateral ten-agreement package signed earlier this month, France will also develop a range of museum and heritage initiatives in Saudi Arabia, including a new photography museum in Riyadh supported by the National School of Photography in Arles, says a French culture ministry statement.
The burgeoning partnerships with France and the UK underpin the drive by the Saudi government to rebrand the ultra conservative state that has a concerning human rights record. Between 2015 and 2022, an average of 129 executions were carried out each year in the kingdom. Regarding the meeting between Starmer and Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (9 December), a government statement says: “Reflecting on Saudi Arabia’s reform agenda, the leaders discussed the steps taken by the Crown Prince’s government to improve human rights under Saudi’s Vision 2030.”
Polly Truscott, Amnesty International UK’s Foreign Policy Adviser, says: “The dark underside to Saudi Arabia’s heavily-marketed drive to create new cultural and tourist ventures, from sport to architecture to music, has been a major crackdown on free speech and almost all forms of dissent or political opposition.”
“This year alone, the Saudi authorities have executed more than 280 people, the highest figure in decades, many after grossly unfair trials.”