WASHINGTON : President Joe Biden confirmed on Tuesday that he will visit Saudi Arabia next month for talks with leaders of the kingdom, a dramatic reordering of his stance on the kingdom that he pledged to make a “pariah” as a Democratic candidate for the White House.

With the visit at the tail end of a July 13-16 Middle East trip that includes stops in Israel and the West Bank, Biden is edging off his adversarial stance against on the Saudis’ human rights record. He’s looking to reset the relationship at a time when the U.S. could use help from the oil-rich kingdom to alleviate soaring prices at the pump for motorists at home and around the globe.

The stop in Saudi Arabia will include talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the defacto leader of the kingdom. U.S. intelligence officials have determined Prince Mohammed likely ordered the 2018 killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

In a brief exchange with reporters ahead of departing to Philadelphia on Tuesday for a labor convention, Biden bristled when asked about his upcoming visit to Jeddah and noted that his team had laid out in a statement “everything I’m doing in the Middle East.”

Human rights advocates and some Democratic allies cautioned Biden about visiting the kingdom, saying such a visit without first getting human rights commitments would send a message to Saudi leaders that there are no consequences for egregious rights violations. The Saudis have been accused of using mass arrests, executions and violence to squelch dissent.

But at a time of skyrocketing prices at the gas pump, growing worries about Iran’s nuclear program and perpetual concern that China is expanding its global footprint, Biden and his national security team have determined that freezing out the Saudis, particularly the crown prince, is simply not in the U.S. interest.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the No. 2 Senate Democrat, told CNN that Biden “has a tough job dealing with gasoline prices and trying to find ways to find new sources and supplies to bring down inflation in the energy sector.”

But Durbin said he had “mixed feelings” about the visit, calling the Saudi’s human rights record “an outrage.”

John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said on CNN that the administration respects the differences of opinion about the president’s decision. He stressed “that Saudi Arabia is a key partner in the region on things like counterterrorism, on the war in Yemen, on energy production.”

The Saudi Embassy in Washington said Biden would meet with both King Salman and Prince Mohammed and described the visit as coming at the king’s invitation “to strengthen the historical bilateral relations and the distinguished strategic partnership between” the two countries.