Tony Blair lobbied Chinese government for Saudi oil company while Middle East peace envoy

[Ghost Dog]

2. Tony Blair: the former PM for hire (Guardian)

Emails show oil firm questioned complex structure of Blair’s company, and reveal his closeness to Chinese leadership

Revealed: Blair courted Chinese leaders for Saudi prince’s oil firm

Randeep Ramesh
Thursday 28 April 2016 22.00 BST

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/28/petrosaudi-tony-blair-emails-oil-company-chinese

When Jonathan Powell, the gatekeeper to the corporate empire of Tony Blair, sat down to lunch with the former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Faisal Al Turki in June 2010 he could not have known how lucrative it would turn out to be for the former British prime minister.

As the high-profile mediator of the stuttering peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Blair had to be careful not to mix business with pleasure. However, one of those lunching with Powell at the annual “global mediator’s retreat”, organised by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was looking to make a deal.

Nawaf Obaid, a security analyst who accompanied Prince Faisal, emailed Powell a week later, according to documents seen by the Guardian, with a suggestion to work with his brother Tarek’s company, PetroSaudi, which he “co-founded and co-owns with Prince Turki bin Abdullah, son of King Abdullah”.

“They have several projects that [they] are working [on] and I think it would [give] a very interesting perspective to see if we could establish a strategic partnership with former PM Tony Blair and yourself,” he wrote...

... Blair’s team sold the former prime minister as someone who could help “unlock situations which might otherwise be blocked by political factors” in places such as China and Africa. PetroSaudi was interested in Beijing’s appetite for oil and how Blair’s firm could help...





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