Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent a message of reassurance and rebuke to Saudi Arabian officials bracing for the release of a report on the oil-rich monarchy’s responsibility for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
“Secretary Blinken and the Foreign Minister discussed the importance of Saudi progress on human rights, including through legal and judicial reforms, and our joint efforts to bolster Saudi defenses,” the State Department said in a summary of Blinken’s phone call Thursday with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.
U.S. intelligence officials are poised to release an unclassified report on the 2018 murder of Khashoggi, a document expected to illuminate Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s culpability for the crime. The additional details could fan international outrage over the crime, which took place in a Saudi Consulate in Turkey, but President Biden’s administration is prefacing the release with statements that underscore the value of the U.S.-Saudi alliance despite the controversy.
PRIVATE JET COMPANY USED BY KHASHOGGI ASSASSINS SEIZED BY SAUDI CROWN PRINCE PRIOR TO SLAYING
“Saudi Arabia is a key partner on many priorities,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters Thursday. “This relationship … is multifaceted, but we want to ensure that we bring those facets much closer in line with our interests and our values. … The release of that report and the accountability that will ensue.”
The summary of intelligence findings was expected to be released as early as Thursday. It was delayed to allow time for the Saudi crown prince to recover from a medical operation this week and for a phone call to take place between Biden and Saudi King Salman.
That call happened on Thursday, the White House said. But a White House summary of the call did not mention Khashoogi’s murder.
That “readout” merely said that Biden “affirmed the importance the United States places on universal human rights and the rule of law.”
“The president told King Salman he would work to make the bilateral relationship as strong and transparent as possible,” according to the U.S. summary. “The two leaders affirmed the historic nature of the relationship and agreed to work together on mutual issues of concern and interest.”
Even before the conversation, which came over 30 days into Biden’s term, his team was making clear while it planned to express frustrations with the royal family more often, the alliance would remain largely in the same shape as on former President Donald Trump’s last day in office.
“The first step is, the next step, I should say, is for the president to speak with the King,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters during the Thursday press briefing, a few hours before the Biden-Salman conversation. “There are areas where we will express concerns and leave open the option of accountability. There are also areas where we will continue to work with Saudi Arabia, given the threats they face in the region.”
A senior United Nations watchdog expects the report to augur in favor of international punishment of the Saudi royal. “Once we have further evidence, it will be really impossible for the rest of the world to ignore whatever information will be provided,” United Nations Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard said this week.
American policymakers have long struggled to constrain Saudi Arabian human rights abuses, given Riyadh’s strategic importance to the U.S. “It’s a mean, nasty world out there — the Middle East in particular,” then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters in 2019 when pressed about his partnership with the Saudis in the months following the murder. “There are important American interests to keep the American people safe, to protect Americans — not only Americans who are here but Americans who are traveling and working, doing business in the Middle East.”
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State Department officials ended their summary of Blinken’s conversation with his counterpart on a positive note, affirming that the secretary “reiterated his commitment to U.S.-Saudi cooperation on ending the war in Yemen, regional security coordination, counterterrorism, and economic development.”
