Saudi Arabia is taking steps to avoid mistakes such as the murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi in the future, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) told US President Joe Biden, according to information from a Saudi official. MbS also called a mistake on the part of the Americans to arrest Abu Ghraib in the Iraq war.
On Friday, on his first visit to the Middle East as president, Biden told reporters he confronted the Saudi leader about the assassination, telling him he believed MbS was personally responsible for the death of Kashoggi, who was writing for the newspaper. American Washington Post.
The crown prince has always denied responsibility for the journalist’s death, who was murdered in October 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul – his remains were never found.
“In the same year [da morte de Kashoggi]similar unfortunate incidents occurred and other journalists were killed in other parts of the world,” the Crown Prince said, according to the note. “
The prince also mentioned the recent murder of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh during an Israeli attack in the West Bank.
All countries around the world, especially the United States and the Saudi kingdom, share values ​​they agree with and others they disagree with, the Saudi government statement added. “However, trying to impose these values ​​by force can have the opposite effect, as happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the US was unsuccessful,” the note reads.
Washington has been softening its stance on Saudi Arabia since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year, triggering one of the world’s worst energy supply crises. The Arab country is the largest global exporter of oil.
This Saturday (16), at a summit with six Gulf countries plus Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, Biden affirmed that the United States will continue to be an active and engaged partner in the Middle East and asked the leaders gathered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to see human rights as a powerful force for economic and social change.
“The United States is invested in building a positive future for the region, in partnership with all of you — and the United States is not going anywhere,” said the Democrat, in the opening speech at the summit. “We are not going to walk away, nor will we leave a vacuum for China, Russia, or Iran to fill.” The meeting is Biden’s last engagement in the region.
Also on Saturday, Biden invited his UAE counterpart, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, to visit the United States before the end of the year, in a gesture of rapprochement after months of tensions over the war in Ukraine. This wealthy Gulf state is home to American troops and has been a strategic partner of Washington for decades, but its economic and political ties to Russia are growing.
The UAE’s ambassador to the United States, Yousef al-Otaiba, admitted in March that relations with Washington were undergoing a “stress test”, a statement given after the UAE abstained in a Security Council vote. UN on a resolution for Russian withdrawal from Ukraine.
Sheikh Mohammed’s political adviser, Anwar Gargash, told reporters on Friday that ties between the United States and the United Arab Emirates have “issues to resolve.”
