On Monday, the White House defended President Joe Biden’s plans to visit Saudi Arabia and meet with its Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, despite US intelligence finding that the prince “is the one who ordered the killing of the Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.”
US officials considered that while Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia has not yet been confirmed, the expected visit will serve US national interests, regardless of “the crown prince’s involvement in the 2018 Washington Post writer Khashoggi’s murder.”
“This trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia, when the time comes, will be in the context of important goals for the American people in the Middle East,” White House spokeswoman Karen Jean-Pierre said.
“If he (Biden) decides that it is in the interests of the United States to engage with a foreign leader, and that such engagement can produce results, then he will,” she added.
She noted that Saudi Arabia “has been a strategic partner of the United States for nearly 80 years. There is no doubt that important interests overlap” with the Kingdom.
There had been speculations regarding Biden’s first visit as president to Israel and Saudi Arabia during his scheduled trip to Germany and Spain to attend the G7 and NATO summits this month.
But the White House refused to confirm the reports regarding the visit’s plan, amid a wave of accusations that Biden had reneged on his previous pledge to treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” country because of Khashoggi’s crime.
Later, American media reported that the visit might have been postponed to July.
Jean-Pierre did not confirm this news or deny that the administration changed its plans.
“People are asking if the visit has been postponed. The president himself said (…) that a visit was under consideration. But it was not changed or postponed. Press reports were not accurate,” she said.
She added that a trip during June is “under consideration, but has not been frozen.”
Indications of a return to warmth in the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia come following Saudi Arabia addresses two of Biden’s priorities by agreeing to increase oil production and helping to extend the armistice in Yemen.
Biden is also expected to visit Israel, where he will face specific questions regarding the slow US diplomacy with Iran.
