Saudis warn US of retaliation in Khashoggi case

ISTANBUL — The disappearance of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi is opening a rift between Washington and Saudi Arabia, with the kingdom blasting President Donald Trump on Sunday for promising “severe punishment” if the royal court was responsible.

If Saudi Arabia “receives any action, it will respond with greater action,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement, citing the oil- rich kingdom’s “influential and vital role in the global economy.”

Saudi Arabia “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 Foreign Ministry said.

Turkish officials allege that a team of Saudi agents killed and dismembered Khashoggi, a U. S. resident and columnist for The Washington Post who was last seen entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on the afternoon of Oct. 2. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity and citing confidential intelligence, have let out a steady stream of leaks detailing what they say was Khashoggi’s brutal murder at the hands of a 15-member Saudi team sent to Turkey with the mission to kill him.

In Washington on Sunday, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R- Fla., said U. S.Saudi relations might need “to be completely revised” — including the multibillion- dollar arms deal that Trump wants to preserve — if an investigation finds the kingdom’s government responsible for murdering Khashoggi.

Rubio told CBS’ “Face the Nation” Saudi Arabia is “a key leverage and hedge point against Iranian influence in the region,” but “we can never be a voice for human rights anywhere in the world if we allow a situation like this to go forward and us do nothing about it.”

The threats of retaliation from the West sent the Saudi stock market plunging as much as 7 percent on Sunday, the first day of the business week in the kingdom.