Biden to call Saudi King over report
Exchange to focus on Khashoggi, rights
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he’ll soon have his first call with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman as the US works to re-evaluate relations with the world’s largest oil exporter amid tensions over its human rights record.
“I am going to be talking to him,” Mr Biden told reporters at the White House. “I haven’t spoken to him yet.”
The call is expected to come ahead of the release of a US intelligence report that may lay blame for the murder of Saudi Washing- ton Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi on the king’s son and heir to the throne, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Mr Biden said he has read the report. It’s expected to find that the Crown Prince approved the killing of Khashoggi, according to Reuters, which cited officials it didn’t identify.
The US release of the “Khashoggi Report” could embarrass the Saudi Prince.
Prince Mohammed has denied any involvement in the killing, while saying he accepts symbolic responsibility for it as the country’s de facto ruler.
Asked on Wednesday about Mr Biden’s past criticism of the Saudi regime, which he has faulted for its record on human rights and its conduct of the war in Yemen, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, “I would certainly not say his concerns or his views have changed.”
“He is, of course, now president of the United States,” she said. “Of course, he has the right to take action of any kind as the president of the United States. But there are also areas where we will work with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on, including ensuring that they have the protections they need to face the threats that are facing them.”
As a candidate, Mr Biden left no doubt what he thought about how the United States should deal with Saudi Arabia.
His plan, he said, was to make the Saudis “pay the price, and make them in fact the pariah that they are”. Mr Biden was equally blunt about the Saudi royal family. There is “very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia,” he said.
Now, as president, Mr Biden must deal with that government, whether it has redeeming value or not. And he must navigate a series of campaign promises to cut off arms shipments and make public the American intelligence conclusions about the role of Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of the country, in the killing of Khashoggi.
Meanwhile, Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, has had successful surgery for appendicitis, state media reported late on Wednesday. The 35-year-old prince had “successful laparoscopic surgery for appendicitis at King Faisal Specialist Hospital” in Riyadh, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.
SPA tweeted footage of the prince walking out of the hospital.
The prince has overseen the most fundamental transformation of Saudi Arabia in its modern history, shaking up the ultraconservative oil giant with an array of economic and social reforms.
But he has also presided over a crackdown on critics including prominent clerics, activists, and royal family members.