Kingdom blasts U.S. Senate over critical votes
Saudi Arabia lashed out Monday at the U.S. Senate for holding the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, personally responsible for the slaying of a Saudi dissident in Istanbul, warning against interference in what it called the kingdom’s internal affairs.
The unusually strong statement aimed at a branch of the U.S. government was the kingdom’s first response to a Senate resolution passed last week that blames Crown Prince Mohammed for the death and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
It was also the kingdom’s latest attempt to manage the damage the killing has done to its decades-old alliance with the United States.
The Oct. 2 murder of Khashoggi by Saudi agents has prompted the most serious crisis in U.S.-Saudi relations in more than a decade, pushing a range of U.S. officials to call for limits on U.S. military cooperation or arms sales to the kingdom.
Last week, the Senate voted to end military assistance for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen and it unanimously passed a separate resolution assigning blame to Crown Prince Mohammed for the killing of Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi government who owned property in Virginia and wrote opinion columns for the Washington Post.
Saudi officials have denied that Crown Prince Mohammed, the de facto ruler of the kingdom, ordered or even knew about the operation to kill Khashoggi. But U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that it was highly likely that he was involved.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry criticized the resolution Monday, saying it was based on “unsubstantiated claims and allegations and contained blatant interference in the kingdom’s internal affairs, undermining the kingdom’s regional and international role.”
While criticism has grown in Congress, President Trump has stood by Crown Prince Mohammed, seeing him as an essential partner in his plans for the Middle East.