Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman speaks during the Future Investment Initiative Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on October 24, 2018.
Bandar Algaloud | Reuters
President Joe Biden said his government will announce on Monday how it intends to deal with relations with Saudi Arabia, days after an intelligence report publicly linked the Saudi crown prince to the death of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Biden made comments to the press on Saturday when asked whether he was punishing Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman for his role in the murder of journalist Khashoggi.
“There will be an announcement on Monday about what we will do with Saudi Arabia in general,” Biden told reporters. The White House did not immediately return a request to provide more details about the announcement.
Khashoggi, a 59-year-old US resident and columnist for the Washington Post, was a critic of the Saudi royal family. He entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 and never left.
Khashoggi was killed, his body was dismembered and his remains were never recovered.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report on Friday that concluded that the Saudi Crown Prince approved the operation that killed Khashoggi, citing Bin Salman’s control of decision-making in Saudi Arabia.
The CIA-led assessment, which had previously been classified, also mentioned the involvement of a key adviser and members of the prince’s protection class in the operation that killed Khashoggi.
The New York Times reported on Friday that the Biden government would not penalize the Crown Prince for Khashoggi’s death. The White House decided that such an action would have a very high cost for cooperation between the United States and Saudi Arabia in the areas of counterterrorism and confrontation with Iran, according to the Times.
However, in a diplomatic rebuke to the Crown Prince, the White House made clear this week that Biden does not see Bin Salman, 35, as his counterpart and will instead conduct relations through his elderly father, the king. Salman.
Bin Salman has been the public face of the kingdom since he became Crown Prince in 2017.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday also imposed visa restrictions on 76 Saudi individuals who “are believed to be involved in threats to dissidents abroad, including, but not limited to, Khashoggi’s murder”.
When asked why the Crown Prince was not among those who would face punishment, Blinken emphasized the importance of US interests and not breaking off relations with Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi government, in a statement on Friday, said it “completely rejects” the report’s conclusions as unacceptable, claiming that the assessment contained inaccurate information.
Riyadh condemned Khashoggi’s death as an “abominable crime” that violates the kingdom’s laws and values, attributing his death to a dishonest group.
– CNBC’s Spencer Kimball contributed to this report