US President Joe Biden is reaching Saudi Arabia today (Friday) to discuss energy supply and security cooperation in Saudi Arabia. Biden’s this trip is designed to reset the US relationship with a country he once declared a “pariah” state.
According to White House spokesperson, Biden will hold meetings with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman along with other government officials.
US intelligence concluded that the Saudi prince directly approved the 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, while the crown prince denies having a role in the killing.
The White House advisers have declined to say whether Biden will shake hands with the prince, the kingdom’s de facto ruler. Biden will meet with a broader set of Arab leaders at a summit in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah on Saturday.
“The president’s going to meet about a dozen leaders and he’ll greet them as he usually does,” the administration official said.
At the start of Biden’s trip to the Middle East, officials said he would avoid close contact, such as shaking hands, as a precaution against Covid-19. But the president ended up engaging in hand-shaking in Israel.
Biden said on Thursday his position on Khashoggi’s murder was “absolutely” clear. Biden made his “pariah” comment less than two years ago after the journalist’s killing and while campaigning for president.
Biden said he would raise human rights in Saudi Arabia, but he did not say specifically if he would broach the Khashoggi murder with its leaders.
Saudi ambassador to the United States Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, writing in US magazine Politico, reiterated the kingdom’s “abhorrence” of the killing, describing it as a gruesome atrocity, and said it cannot define US-Saudi ties. She said the relationship should also not be seen in the “outdated and reductionist” oil-for-security paradigm.
