US to skip Saudi biz summit, to give Riyadh probe time

WASHINGTON: The US on Thursday said it will give Saudi Arabia a few more days to wrap up its probe into the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi but announced its top treasury official will skip a global economic summit billed as “Davos in the Desert”.

“I will not be participating in the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia,” treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin tweeted, referring to the meet. He joined a large number of prospective attendees who have dropped out over Khashoggi’s disappearance.

The summit is an initiative of Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, who is at the centre of the international controversy surrounding Khashoggi, a strident critic of the prince, who was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

Khashoggi had lived in the US in self-imposed exile since 2017 and the Trump administration is under mounting pressure, including from Republican lawmakers, to hold the Saudi government, an ally and major buyer of American defence equipment, to account.

He was tortured and killed soon after arriving at the consulate, Turkish media reported, based on leaks from the government. The reports alleged his body was dismembered and the killing was carried out by a team of 15 men who arrived the same day from Saudi Arabia, and left soon after.

President Donald Trump is reluctant to call out the Saudis and has cited their denials and said he doesn’t want to jeopardise the sale of military equipment worth over $1 billion. But coming under pressure, he sent secretary of state Mike Pompeo to Saudi Arabia and Turkey to ascertain facts.

“I told President Trump this morning that we ought to give them a few more days to complete that so we can get a complete understanding the facts surrounding that,” Pompeo told reporters after meeting Trump, before “we can make a decision about how the US should respond”.

Pompeo met Saudi King Salman and the crown prince in Riyadh before going to Turkey, where he met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Asked what could have happened to Khashoggi, he said, “There are lots of stories out there about what happened, and I’m going to allow the process to move forward and allow the facts to unfold, and...we will make a determination for ourselves about what happened there, based on the facts that are presented.”

There is a perception here among critics of the Trump administration that US officials are working with the Saudis to give them time to come up with a “cover story”.