San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Crown prince, scorned by many, embraced at summit
OSAKA, Japan — For many he’s an international pariah, but you wouldn’t know it by the lavish reception Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received at the G20 summit last week.
He beamed as he stood front and center, sandwiched between President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, for a group photo. He exchanged an impish grin as he sat down next to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He posed with South Korean President Moon Jaein and a group of flagwaving kids ahead of an earlier signing ceremony for $8 billion in deals.
Even as rebukes pile up elsewhere — a U.N. expert has called for an investigation of his alleged role in the killing of a prominent journalist, and a growing number of Americans are questioning their nation’s support for his kingdom and its role in the war in Yemen — some leaders in Osaka went out of their way to make sure the prince felt comfortable.
It’s not clear if he was pressed privately over concerns about the killing last October of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, who had criticized the Saudi heir in columns for the Washington Post. But the prince seemed completely at ease in public Friday and Saturday.
As the prince — easily one of the tallest leaders, and striking in his flowing, anklelength robes — strode from meeting to meeting, or wandered among the other leaders before the summit’s setpiece ceremonies, he often flashed a broad smile. At Saturday’s panel on women’s empowerment, for instance, he sat in the front row, chatting amicably with other leaders. Trump, who has long been loath to scold authoritarian leaders for human rights abuses, seemed to go out of his way at times to shepherd Prince Mohammed, at one point patting him on the back as they walked together.
As the two sat down over breakfast Saturday, Trump praised his “friend” for taking steps to open up the kingdom and extend freedoms to Saudi women.
Trump initially ignored reporters’ questions about Khashoggi’s death, but when pressed later at a news conference he called the killing “horrible” while claiming that “nobody so far has pointed directly a finger at the future king of Saudi Arabia.” A White House statement said the two leaders discussed “Saudi Arabia’s critical role in ensuring stability in the Middle East and global oil markets, the growing threat from Iran, increased trade and investments between the two countries, and the importance of human rights issues.”
The U.S. president sees a close relationship with Saudi Arabia as a linchpin to Washington’s Middle East strategy to counter Iran. Trump has brushed aside Khashoggi’s killing and said it has already been investigated. A Saudi pledge to spend billions of dollars on U.S. military equipment, Trump said, “means something to me.”
Following a monthslong inquiry, Agnes Callamard, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, recently said she’d concluded that Khashoggi was a victim of a “deliberate, premeditated execution, an extrajudicial killing for which the state of Saudi Arabia is responsible.”
Saudi Arabia denies the 33yearold crown prince had any knowledge of the killing of Khashoggi. The kingdom has put on trial 11 suspects, some of whom worked directly for the prince. But his closest former adviser, Saud alQahtani, who was sanctioned by the United States after the killing, is not among those on trial.
Business concerns may have colored Prince Mohammed’s warm welcome last week.
Take South Korea. In Seoul before the summit, Saudi Arabia and South Korea signed 10 memorandums of understanding and contracts that would be worth $8.3 billion, according to Seoul’s presidential office. Moon hosted a luncheon at his mansion that was attended by some of South Korea’s most powerful businessmen.
South Korea gets more than 70% of its crude oil from the Middle East. Seoul is the world’s fifth largest importer of crude oil and Saudi Arabia has been its biggest supplier. Prince Mohammed, during his meetings with Moon, promised to help with possible fuel shortages in case of supply disruptions caused by Middle East turmoil.