President Joe Biden speaks to reporters following meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the Qasr Al Shaq Hotel in Jeddah, Waldorf Astoria in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on January 15, 2020. Associated Press
US President Joe Biden has directly mentioned to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that he is responsible for the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Crown Prince Mohammed, however, denied the motive, saying, “He is not responsible for himself.”
President Biden, who is visiting Saudi Arabia, said at a press conference following meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed on the 15th (local time), “I raised the question at the beginning of the meeting, making it clear what I was thinking at the time and what I am thinking now.” said.
Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and dissident Saudi journalist, was murdered by Saudi agents at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Relations between the two countries rapidly cooled as US intelligence officials blamed Crown Prince Mohammed for the assassination, and President Biden vowed to turn Saudi Arabia into an international “bullying”.
In this situation, President Biden personally visited Saudi Arabia to raise the issue, and the controversy is not going away.
“The president of the United States said very straight-forward that silence on human rights issues contradicts who we are and who we are,” Biden said.
Prince Mohammed, however, said he was not personally responsible for the assassination and said he had already taken action once morest those responsible, Biden said.
Earlier that day, President Biden, who arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and headed to Al Salam’s palace, greeted Crown Prince Mohammed immediately following getting out of his private vehicle, instead of shaking hands, said “fist bow”.
Archyde.com reported that it was a scene defining the essential meaning of reestablishing relations between the two countries, and Bloomberg reported that the ‘era of Saudi bullying’ had ended.
However, Fred Ryan, the publisher and CEO of the WP, to which Khashoggi belonged, immediately issued a statement, saying the fist greeting was “shameful” and strongly criticized that it was giving him the ‘unjust salvation’ he had longed for. .
The US joint investigative team, which entered the meeting room at the beginning of the meeting, asked President Biden, ‘Is Saudi Arabia still bullying?’ and Crown Prince Mohammed, ‘Would he apologize to the Khashoggi family?’, but the two did not answer.
However, the Crown Prince Mohammed showed a smile instead of answering, according to the joint report.
Meanwhile, President Biden also emphasized the achievements of his visit to Saudi Arabia.
He said progress had been made toward normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and that the United States and Saudi Arabia had agreed to work together on a wide range of green energy initiatives.
He also expressed optimism that Saudi Arabia will take action in the coming weeks to boost global oil supplies.
President Biden said, “We will not leave a void in the Middle East for Russia or China to fill.”
The purpose of President Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia is to stabilize oil prices, which have soared since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
It is convincingly suggested that President Biden went to Saudi Arabia out of a sense of crisis that the surge in oil prices would lead to inflation, eroding his approval rating, and that it would be a bad news for the November midterm elections.
President Biden previously described his visit to Saudi Arabia as “a visit in the national interest” amid controversy.
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