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President Joe Biden’s first day in Saudi Arabia ended with a moment when he and his advisers had been very careful: a televised punch with the guy who ordered the murder of Washington Post reporter Jamal Kashoggi.
The brief meeting between Biden and Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince known by his acronym, MBS, took place shortly after Biden was in the kingdom for two days of meetings with Saudi officials and leaders on the other side. of the Gulf Region.
White House officials had hoped to avoid any symbol of Mr. Biden giving a handshake or any kind of greeting with MBS by stating at the outset that the nearly 80-year-old president would avoid handshakes as a precaution due to emerging Covid-19 cases in the region. But Biden scuttled that plan minutes after arriving in Israel for the first leg when he greeted Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu with a warm smile.
Upon his arrival in Jeddah, Biden’s first element was a bilateral meeting with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. But the president instead waved through MBS. He presented the choice between the handshake he wanted to avoid and the one that most disappointed the US. USA Saudi Arabia, the president chose to commit to a Covid-conscious hit.
The couple had another awkward moment at the start of an extended meeting between U. S. and Saudi officials when an American journalist, Peter Alexander of NBC News, shouted a question to MBS: “Jamal Kashoggi, are you going with your family?
None of the assembled leaders said anything in reaction before the reporters showed up, the U. S. television camera. USA He caught the crown prince smiling as he ignored the question.
But in comments after the meeting, Biden said he had made the Post columnist’s killing the first order of the day in his conversations with MBS.
“As for Kashoggi’s murder, I raised it at the most sensible moment of the meeting, clarifying what I thought then and what I think now,” said Biden, who described himself as “simple and straightforward” in referring to the murder, which U. S. intelligence officials discovered had been ordered through the crown prince.
“I expressed my point of view very obviously . . . for an American president to be silent on a human rights factor is incompatible with who we are and who I am,” he said.
According to Biden, MBS’s reaction was to claim that he was not “personally responsible” for the killing and to claim that he had “taken action” against those he found responsible. The president said he told the crown prince he would do anything. attempt to strike at critics of the Saudi government in other countries as “a violation of human rights. “
“It’s outrageous what happened to Kashoggi,” he said.
Biden spoke to reporters about five hours after arriving at Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz International Airport aboard Air Force One after a two-hour flight from Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport. The flight was made via a charter plane worn by the White House press corps several hours earlier. The two planes landed less than a day after the kingdom announced it would open its airspace to all carriers, adding those departing from Israel.
Saudi Arabia and Israel have never identified each other and have no diplomatic relations, and the kingdom has never allowed any Israeli flights to transit through its airspace. The long-standing ban was lifted on Thursday after Saudi Arabia’s General Civil Aviation Authority said the country’s airspace would now be open to all airlines in accordance with foreign treaties.
The announcement that Saudi Arabia would allow flights from Israel, which Biden called a “big deal” and a “tangible first step on the road to what [he hopes] will end with a broader normalization of relations,” came here. after months of achieving negotiations between the kingdom, Israel and Egypt that led to the settlement of a long-standing dispute over a pair of Red Sea islands.
The Saudi leg of Biden’s vacation has not been lacking in controversy in light of statements he made in his 2020 presidential crusade about his preference for treating the kingdom as a “pariah” in its human rights record and the crown prince’s role in Washington’s assassination. Post columnist Jamal Kashoggi.
Biden’s visit to the Saudi kingdom drew complaints from members of any of the major U. S. political parties. The U. S. and Democrats complained that it legitimizes MBS and ignores Saudi Arabia’s appalling human rights record, and Republicans mocked Biden. Biden for appearing to beg the royal circle of relatives. to ramp up oil production in hopes of helping his party save November’s midterm elections, as Biden’s arrival in Jeddah comes as Americans reel from rising inflation, which the White House says is largely due to high oil prices.
But White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden’s component was to “ensure that there is no vacuum in the Middle East to be filled through China and Russia,” and to show that the United States intends to play a “critical role. “”role. role” in the “strategically important region”.
Sullivan, who spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One heading to Jeddah, said Biden would discuss “energy security” issues in his meetings with Saudi officials, as well as with the leaders of the “GCC plus three” nations who will meet. Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Iraq and Egypt.
But Sullivan said the White House does not expect a rapid increase in oil production as a result of Sullivan’s talks. and a non-OPEC oil exporters’ organization led by Russia would take “additional steps” to increase production “in the coming weeks. “