Anqari, Minster of Higher Education, opened Sunday the new building of the Saudi Cultural Attaché in Fairbanks, Virginia, United States of America with the Saudi Ambassador to the US, Adil Al-Jubair, in attendance. The opening of the new facility also marked 60 years since the opening of the first Saudi Cultural Office in the US, which was based in New York to serve the very first students sent from the Kingdom. Saudi Cultural Attaché Muhammad Al-Issa gave a presentation on how the number of Saudi students had grown over that period from only a few dozen to the 54,000 in the US today. “We hope the new building will help serve Saudi students and inform the wider communities in its area of the culture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its unique culture,” Al-Issa said. Speaking at a ceremony in Washington Sunday to mark the graduation of some 4,000 Saudi students from US universities on Saturday, meanwhile, Minister Al-Anqari described the primary message of students abroad as “openness to others”. Al-Anqari said that Saudis on the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Scholarships Abroad Program had a range of messages to convey, but, according to Al-Watan Arabic daily, said that the expansion of the program showed the Kingdom's particular emphasis towards “openness to other people to go in tandem with the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques' initiative for dialogue between cultures and civilizations”. “This is the most prominent example of the sincerity of the Kingdom in its move towards openness in peace towards others and the greatest proof of the wish of the Kingdom's government that world and its peoples live in brotherhood, love and peace,” Al-Anqari said. “On that basis the Kingdom continues its efforts to build bridges of scientific communication and cultural exchange through a variety of paths, one of the most important of which is the sending of students abroad to study.”
