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Eight United States presidents have made presidential visits to the Middle East. The first trips by an incumbent president to countries in (or partly within) the Middle East were those of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and were an offshoot of Allied diplomatic interactions during World War II. To date, 16 visits have been made to Egypt, 11 to Saudi Arabia, ten to Israel, six to both Jordan and Turkey, five to Iraq, four to Iran, three to the Palestinian Territories, two to both Kuwait and Syria, one to Bahrain, Georgia, Oman, Qatar, and to the United Arab Emirates. No incumbent American president has yet visited: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Lebanon, or Yemen.
Visits by former presidents
- Ulysses S. Grant visited Alexandria, Egypt, met with Khedive Isma'il Pasha, sailed up the Nile to tour the Valley of the Kings, and travelled by train down the length of the Suez Canal in 1878, during a post-presidency world tour.
- Richard Nixon (without official State Department credentials) attended the funeral of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, former Shah of Iran, in Cairo, March 8, 1980.
- Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were among the dignitaries representing the United States at the funeral of Egyptian President Sadat in Cairo, October 10, 1981.
- Former President Bill Clinton accompanied President Barack Obama to the memorial service for former Israeli President and Prime Minister Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, September 30, 2016.
References
United States presidential visits to the Middle East Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA