Secretary of State John Kerry speaks in Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill Wednesday during a ceremony to dedicate a bust of Winston Churchill. Senate and House leaders, as well as Kerry, gathered to dedicate the Churchill bust, which will now stand in the Capitol as a testament to the strength of the relationship between the U.S. and the United Kingdom. Kerry heads off this weekend on a trip that will take him to Europe and the Middle East.

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry is hitting the road again, this time on a damage-control mission to the Middle East and Europe where rancor is high over U.S. strategies in Syria, Egypt and Iran as well as American surveillance activities revealed by ex-NSA analyst Edward Snowden.

Kerry will leave Washington this weekend for Saudi Arabia, Poland, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Morocco, the State Department said on Thursday. With tensions between the U.S. and many of its allies rising, the department acknowledged that at least parts of the nine-day trip might be difficult.

“The secretary overall believes that rolling up his sleeves and having personal diplomacy is the way that we should continue to approach either issues we work together on, global challenges, or issues where there may be concerns as it relates to the intel-gathering reports,” spokesman Jen Psaki said.

At his first scheduled stop in Riyadh, Kerry will confront multiple spats with the Saudis over resolving the continuing conflict in Syria, nuclear negotiations with Iran and President Barack Obama’s decision to withhold significant amounts of U.S. assistance to Egypt.

In his meeting with Saudi King Abdullah, Kerry “will reaffirm the strategic nature of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, given the importance of the work between our two countries on shared challenges, and the leadership Saudi Arabia provides for the region,” Psaki said.

It may be a hard sell.

Saudi officials have expressed frustration with the Obama administration’s Syria policy, despite Washington’s and Riyadh’s shared goal of bringing an end to President Bashar Assad’s rule. Kerry himself has publicly acknowledged Saudi disappointment with the fact that Obama did not follow through on his threat to punish Assad for the use of chemical weapons with military strikes. Saudi Arabia has been at the forefront of providing military assistance to Assad’s foes and wants the U.S. to take a more active role, a course the White House has resisted.

In addition, Saudi Arabia has watched with dismay as the administration has embarked on a tentative rapprochement with its archrival Iran and distanced itself from the government in Egypt in the aftermath of the military’s ouster of the country’s first democratically elected president.

Kerry told a town hall meeting with State Department employees earlier this week that he would like to travel to Egypt in the near future, but the itinerary released on Thursday did not include a stop there.

From Saudi Arabia, Kerry will travel to Warsaw for discussions with senior Polish officials on strategic and democracy issues, including missile defense and plans for NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan next year.

Although it is the only European stop on Kerry’s schedule, the visit to Poland will likely highlight the uproar over the revelations of alleged NSA spying on the continent. The controversy is particularly acute in neighboring Germany, where officials are incensed that Chancellor Angela Merkel was targeted for surveillance.