Saudi Arabia lashes out as pressure builds over missing journalist
Saudi Arabia has threatened to retaliate for any sanctions imposed against it after United States President Donald Trump said the oil-rich kingdom deserves “severe punishment” if it is responsible for the disappearance and suspected murder of Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi.
The warning from the world’s top oil exporter came after a turbulent day on the Saudi stock exchange, which plunged as much as 7 per cent at one point. That fear appeared to spread to Japan’s SoftBank, which has invested large sums of Saudi money.
The statement was issued as international concern grew over the writer who vanished on a visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul over a week ago.
American lawmakers threatened tough punitive action against the Saudis, and Germany, France and Britain jointly called for a “credible investigation” into Khashoggi’s disappearance.
Turkish officials have said they fear a Saudi hit team killed and dismembered Khashoggi, who wrote critically of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The kingdom has called such allegations “baseless” but has not offered any evidence Khashoggi ever left the consulate.
Already, international business leaders are pulling out of the kingdom’s upcoming investment forum, a highprofile event known as “Davos in the Desert”, and the sell-off on Riyadh’s Tadawul stock exchange showed that investors are uneasy.
In an interview aired yesterday, Trump told 60 Minutes that Saudi Arabia would face strong consequences if involved in Khashoggi’s disappearance.
“There’s something really terrible and disgusting about that, if that was the case, so we’re going to have to see,” Trump said. “We’re going to get to the bottom of it, and there will be severe punishment.”
But the President has also said “we would be punishing ourselves” by cancelling arms sales to Saudi Arabia. He said the sales are a “tremendous order for our companies”, and if the Saudis don’t buy their weaponry from the US, they would get it from others.
In a statement published by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, the kingdom warned that if it “receives any action, it will respond with greater action, and that the kingdom’s economy has an influential and vital role in the global economy”.
“The kingdom affirms its total rejection of any threats and attempts to undermine it, whether by threatening to impose economic sanctions, using political pressures or repeating false accusations,” the Saudi statement said.
The statement did not elaborate. However, a column published in English a short time later by the general manager of the Saudi-owned AlArabiya satellite news network suggested Saudi Arabia could use its oil production as a weapon.
It’s unclear, however, whether Saudi Arabia would be willing to unilaterally cut production.
Saudi journalist Turki Aldakhil said Saudi arms purchases from the US and other trade could be at risk.
“The truth is that if Washington imposes sanctions on Riyadh, it will stab its own economy to death, even though it thinks that it is stabbing only Riyadh!” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Saudi King Salman spoke by telephone with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about Khashoggi. While Turkey and the kingdom differ on political issues, Saudi investments are a crucial lifeline for Ankara amid trouble with its lira currency.
Prince Mohammed, King Salman’s son, has aggressively pitched the kingdom as a destination for foreign investment. But Khashoggi’s disappearance has led several business leaders and media outlets to back out of the upcoming investment conference in Riyadh called the Future Investment Initiative.
Khashoggi has written extensively for the Post about Saudi Arabia, criticising its war in Yemen, its recent diplomatic spat with Canada and its arrest of women’s rights activists after the lifting of a ban on women driving. Those policies are all seen as initiatives of the crown prince.